I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll make an exception.
There is no feeling more comforting and consoling than knowing you are right next to the one you love.
There is something very morbid about modern sympathy with pain.
It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.
He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.
The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret.
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.
Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.
History is merely gossip.
Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.
In going to America one learns that poverty is not a necessary accompaniment to civilization.
As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.
It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings.
In art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them.
He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.
I don’t mind plain women being puritans. It is the only excuse they have for being plain.
Let me be dressed as I will, yet flies worms and flowers exceed me still.