Fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant unreflecting people to whom real life means nothing.

The pianoforte is the most important of all musical instruments; its invention was to music what the invention of printing was to poetry.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

Nothing is more dangerous than a poor doctor: not even a poor employer or a poor landlord.

I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow's feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.

Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men.