It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.

Wit is a thing capable of proof.

The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.

The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.

Who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?