What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.

A nation will not count the sacrifice it makes, if it supposes it is engaged in a struggle for its fame, its influence and its existence.

Consider Ireland.... You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.

A man's fate is his own temper; and according to that will be his opinion as to the particular manner in which the course of events is regulated. A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance.

Having the courage to live within one's means is respectability.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

That soul-subduing sentiment, harshly called flirtation, which is the spell of a country house.