The men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready; an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'.

In every parting there is an image of death.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change - only to give stability to one beautiful moment.

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.