Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.

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.

the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.

It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother.

There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.

Bargaining is essential to the life of the world; but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process.