An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

That doctrine of peace at any price has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world.

What Art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern: the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men the useful has succeeded to the beautiful. Instead of the city of the Violet Crown, a Lancashire village has expanded into a mighty region of factories and warehouses. Yet, rightly understood, Manchester is as great a human exploit; as Athens.