He must have known me if he had seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognize me by my face.
The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little – or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.
In these days a man is nobody unless his biography is kept so far posted up that it may be ready for the national breakfast-table on the morning after his demise.
A man’s own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly indifferent to anyone else.
Wine is valued for its price, not its flavor.
There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it.
He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not a burden.
To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.
She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.
Since woman’s rights have come up a young woman is better able to fight her own battle.
Oxford is the most dangerous place to which a young man can be sent.
It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.
It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man’s interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.
Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.
Of all needs a book has, the chief need is to be readable.
There was but one thing for him;- to persevere till he got her, or till he had finally lost her. And should the latter be his fate, as he began to fear that it would be, then, he would live, but live only, like a crippled man.
It is no good any longer to have any opinion upon anything.
Above all else, never think you’re not good enough.
I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.
To feel that your hours are filled to overflowing, that you can barely steal minutes enough for sleep, that the welfare of many is entrusted to you, that the world looks on and approves, that some good is always being done to others – above all things some good to your country; – that is happiness.