We know when we have had enough of a friend, and we know when a friend has had enough of us. The first truth is no more palatable than the second.

What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?

The worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour.

An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting.

the tea-hour is the hour of peace ... strife is lost in the hissing of the kettle - a tranquilizing sound, second only to the purring of a cat.

Sleep sweetly in the fields of asphodel, and waken, as of old, to stretch thy languid length, and purr thy soft contentment to the skies.

There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.