Give a good deed the credit of a good motive; and give an evil deed the benefit of the doubt.

The art of the dramatist is very like the art of the architect. A plot has to be built up just as a house is built-story after story; and no edifice has any chance of standing unless it has a broad foundation and a solid frame.

Give a good deed the credit of a good motive; and give an evil deed the benefit of the doubt.

When I have no idea, I gnaw my nails and invoke the aid of Providence.

A gentleman need not know Latin, but he should at least have forgotten it.

To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later.

There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde's plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics.