It's very good of you--" "No, no, not at all. It's my hobby. Not proposing to people, I don't mean, but investigating things. Well, cheer-frightfully-ho and all that. And I'll call again, if I may." "I will give the footman orders to admit you," said the prisoner, gravely, "you will always find me at home.

To foment grievance and to set men at variance is the trade by which agitators thrive and journalists make money.

[N]othing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don't care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature.

Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.

Well-bred English people never have imagination.

Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.

How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.