Perhaps you know some well-off families who do not seem to suffer from their riches. They do not overeat themselves; they find occupations to keep themselves in health; they do not worry about their position; they put their money into safe investments and are content with a low rate of interest; and they bring up their children to live simply and do useful work. But this means that they do not live like rich people at all, and might therefore just as well have ordinary incomes.

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild' is a snivelling modern invention, with no warrant in the gospels.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

To the person with a toothache, even if the world is tottering, there is nothing more important than a visit to a dentist.