Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

A family is a tyranny ruled over by it's weakest member.

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.

My mother married a very good man ... and she is not at all keen on my doing the same.

Religion is a good invention in times of stress.

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.

For the pre-Darwinian age had come to be regarded as a Dark Age in which men still believed that the book of Genesis was a standard scientific treatise, and that the only additions to it were Galileo'a demonstration of Leonardo da Vinci's simple remark that the earth is a moon of the sun, Sir Humphrey Davy's invention of the safety lamp, the discovery of electricity, the application of steam to industrial purposes, and the penny post.