There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good.

I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference in her presence.

You youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well and working easy; you've no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback.

What moments of despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity: and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.

The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.