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I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.
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In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs sould be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue.
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You can never teach them, except by the slow lesson of habit.
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After money in the bank, a grudge is the next best thing.
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Wine is valued for its price, not its flavor.
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The bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from the strength of his arguments.
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No one can depute authority. It comes too much from personal accidents, and too little from reason or law to be handed over to others.
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And though it is much to be a nobleman, it is more to be a gentleman.
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Men are cowards before women until they become tyrants.
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When men think much, they can rarely decide.
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They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind.
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It is the test of a novel writer's art that he conceal his snake-in-the-grass; but the reader may be sure that it is always there.
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Never let the estate decrease in your hands. It is only by such resolutions as that that English noblemen and English gentlemen can preserve their country. I cannot bear to see property changing hands.
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It is necessary to get a lot of men together, for the show of the thing, otherwise the world will not believe. That is the meaning of committees. But the real work must always be done by one or two men.
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But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.
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He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he know how to speak the truth.
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A farmer's horse is never lame, never unfit to go. Never throws out curbs, never breaks down before or behind. Like his master he is never showy. He does not paw and prance, and arch his neck, and bid the world admire his beauties...and when he is wanted, he can always do his work.
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A man will be generally very old and feeble before he forgets how much money he has in the funds.
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Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant.
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It is self-evident that at sixty-five a man has done all that he is fit to do.
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Cham is the only thing to screw one up when one is down a peg.
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I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.
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This was Barrington Erle, a politician of long standing, who was still looked upon by many as a young man, because he had always been known as a young man, and because he had never done anything to compromise his position in that respect. He had not married, or settled himself down in a house of his own, or become subject to the gout, or given up being careful about the fitting of his clothes.
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It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.