The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents' hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys, and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.

The novelties of one generation are only the resuscitated fashions of the generation before last.

Vegetarians claim to be immune from most diseases but they have been known to die from time to time.

God help England if she had no Scots to think for her.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless.