... we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.

In poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in.

Expenditure--like ugliness and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others.

It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.

There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born.