Apart from letters, it is the vulgar custom of the moment to deride the thinkers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras; yet there has not been, in all history, another agewhen so much sheer mental energy was directed toward creating a fairer social order.

Women like to sit down with trouble - as if it were knitting.

Cruelty is the only sin.

Like all born politicians, their eye was for the main chance rather than for the argument, and they found it easier to forswear a conviction than to forego a comfort.

you could have forgiven my committing a sin if you hadn't feared that I had a committed a pleasure as well.

I ain't never seen no head so level that it could bear the lettin' in of politics.

Doesn't all experience crumble in the end to mere literary material?