Now, I have nothing to say against uncles in general. They are usually very excellent people, and very convenient to little boys and girls.

When the ship is going down we trouble ourselves little enough about the style of the cabin furniture.

according to the old joke, married people are often like little boys bathing, who cry with chattering teeth to the boys on the shore, 'Do come in, it's so warm' - it is not always warm.

A person who is careless about money is careless about everything, and untrustworthy in everything.

... what a fatal thing in pictures, books, or human lives, is a lack of proportion.

genius is original, unique; and in whatever form it may develop itself is the greatest gift that can be given to man, the strongest known link between the material life we have and the spiritual life that we can only guess at. Every great poet, painter, or musician - every inventor or man of science, every fine actor or orator, comes to us as the exponent of something diviner than we know. We cannot understand it, but we feel it, and acknowledge it.

never was there a thoroughly noble nature without some romance in it.