The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.

We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation.

There is a secret and wholesome conviction in the heart of every man or woman who has written a book that it should be no easy matter for an intelligent reader to lay down that book unfinished. There is a pardonable impression among reviewers that half an hour in its company is sufficient.

Life is so full of miseries, minor and major; they press so close upon us at every step of the way, that it is hardly worthwhile to call one another's attention to their presence.

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.