How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Fad to draw plans! Do you think I only care about my fellow-creatures' houses in that childish way? I may well make mistakes. How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?" (1.4.23)
Dorothea's friends and family ridicule her passion for improving the cottages that poor people live in. She finally loses her temper – who likes having their noble and deep-seated ambitions ridiculed?
Quote #5
Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly. (1.7.6)
Dorothea longs to understand the world, and because she doesn't know Greek or Latin (languages usually only taught to men at the time), she assumes that understanding "those provinces of masculine knowledge" will give her a better perspective from which to see the "truth" about the nature of the universe.
Quote #6
Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary – at least the alphabet and a few roots – in order to arrive at the core of things, and judge soundly on the social duties of the Christian. (1.7.6)
This passage is just dripping with irony. Dorothea thinks that learning a smattering of Hebrew as well as Latin and Greek will help her "arrive at the core of things." Learning foreign languages might be useful and fun, but it doesn't teach you the answer to "life, the universe, and everything" (to quote Douglas Adams).