Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.

The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

An acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one.

In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when the nations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God, I think, and until all sexual irregularities and not some of them are penal the Church will never reconquer England.

Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes.

The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it.