If you lived in London, where the whole system is one of false good-fellowship, and you may know a man for twenty years without finding out that he hates you like poison, you would soon have your eyes opened. There we do unkind things in a kind way: we say bitter things in a sweet voice: we always give our friends chloroform when we tear them to pieces.

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.

Nothing remains beautiful and interesting except thought, because the thought is the life.

Laws, religions, creeds, and systems of ethics, instead of making society better than its best unit, make it worse than its average unit, because they are never up to date.

A married man is a man with a past, while a bachelor is a man with a future.

Those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine and the electric telegraph.

No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does