As to happiness in this life it is hardly compatible with that diminished respect which ever attends the relinquishing of labour.

High rank and soft manners may not always belong to a true heart.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

Little bits of things make me do it; — perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago; — the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.

No living orator would convince a grocer that coffee should be sold without chicory; and no amount of eloquence will make an English lawyer think that loyalty to truth should come before loyalty to his client.

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

If a cook can't make soup between two and seven, she can't make it in a week.