-
Here in England the welfare of the State depends on the conduct of our aristocracy.
-
Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.
-
The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder.
-
I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.
-
I never believe anything that a lawyer says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much the thousand. I know he'll say whatever he thinks most likely to forward his own views.
-
The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members of Parliament generally.
-
A man's love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit.
-
Fortune favors the brave; and the world certainly gives the most credit to those who are able to give an unlimited credit to themselves.
-
The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself.
-
An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.
-
A pleasant letter I hold to be the pleasantest thing that this world has to give.
-
Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more.
-
There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it.
-
A man can't do what he likes with his coverts.
-
What is there that money will not do?
-
The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men.
-
The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion.
-
Of all hatreds that the world produces, a wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the strongest.
-
We cannot bring ourselves to believe it possible that a foreigner should in any respect be wiser than ourselves. If any such point out to us our follies, we at once claim those follies as the special evidence of our wisdom.
-
The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.
-
No other American city is so intensely American as New York.
-
The law is a great thing,--because men are poor and weak, and bad. And it is great, because where it exists in its strength, no tyrant can be above it. But between you and me there should be no mention of law as the guide of conduct. Speak to me of honour, and of duty, and of nobility; and tell me what they require of you.
-
The greatest mistake any man ever made is to suppose that the good things of the world are not worth the winning.
-
A husband is very much like a house or a horse.