Never let the estate decrease in your hands. It is only by such resolutions as that that English noblemen and English gentlemen can preserve their country. I cannot bear to see property changing hands.

It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything.

I do like a little romance... just a sniff, as I call it, of the rocks and valleys. Of course, bread-and-cheese is the real thing. The rocks and valleys are no good at all, if you haven't got that.

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can't fly away.

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

I never knew a government yet that wanted to do anything.