Miserliness is the one vice that grows stronger with increasing years. It yields its sordid pleasures to the end.

A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of the words, its master; the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat.

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

Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.

If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side.

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

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