Work is the best of narcotics, providing the patient be strong enough to take it. I dread idleness as if it were Hell.

we have not been impressed with any attribute of the Senate other than its appearance and manners. We have heard the best speakers: they all fire off speeches which deal with the entire subject in general terms and which do not attempt to debate, to answer opponents' arguments or offer new points for discussion. And the speeches are constantly degenerating into empty rhetoric; they abound in quotations from well-known authors or from their own former speeches.

All along the line, physically, mentally, morally, alcohol is a weakening and deadening force.

Are all Cabinets congeries of little autocrats with a super-autocrat presiding over them?

That part of the Englishman's nature which has found gratification in religion is now drifting into political life.

. . . if I had been a man, self-respect, family pressure and the public opinion of my class would have pushed me into a money-making profession; as a mere woman I could carve out a career of disinterested research.

At present I feel like a caged animal, bound up by the luxury, comfort and respectability of my position. I can't get the training that I want without neglecting my duty.