It is always worth while asking a question, though it is not always worth while answering one.
Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.
I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.
He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.
If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.
Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose.
Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.
We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, that fire can purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all.
Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
It is very vulgar to talk about one’s own business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then only at dinner parties.
Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.
If a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. But if a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly.
To know anything about oneself one must know all about others.
The only form of fiction in which real characters do not seem out of place is history. In novels they are detestable.
Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
I was disappointed in Niagara – most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.
No man should have a secret from his wife. She invariably finds it out.
One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about.