What's the use of money if you have to earn it.

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle.

In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.

We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

It has taken me nearly twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public; and I am not sure that I am not still regarded as a suspicious character in some quarters.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.