Cats, even when robust, have scant liking for the boisterous society of children, and are apt to exert their utmost ingenuity to escape it. Nor are they without adult sympathy in their prejudice.

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

It is because of our unassailable enthusiasm, our profound reverence for education, that we habitually demand of it the impossible. The teacher is expected to perform a choice and varied series of miracles.

We may fail of our happiness, strive we ever so bravely; but we are less likely to fail if we measure with judgement our chances and our capabilities.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

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

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.