Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman.

An Englishman does everything on principle: he fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.

A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.

It is doubtless wise, when a reform is introduced, to try to persuade the British public that it is not a reform at all; but appearances must be kept up to some extent at least.

The theory that music has a depraving effect on morals has now been abandoned to the old women of both sexes.