There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.

It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.

Economics and ethics have little in common.

the most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.

I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts - facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.

I wonder what especial sanctity attaches itself to fifteen minutes. It is always the maximum and the minimum of time which will enable us to acquire languages, etiquette, personality, oratory ... One gathers that twelve minutes a day would be hopelessly inadequate, and twenty minutes a wasteful and ridiculous excess.