Who can doubt that between the English and the French, between the Scotch and the Irish, there are differences of character which have profoundly affected and still affect the course of history?

The materials of the novelist must be real; they must be gathered from the field of humanity by his actual observation.

The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke.

In my youth,geology was nervously striving to accommodate itself to Genesis. Now it is Genesis that is striving to accommodate itself to geology.

Canada is said to have got its name from the two Spanish words aca and nada, signifying 'there is nothing here.'

The father of confederation is deadlock.

Dante himself is open to the suspicion of partiality: it is said, not without apparent ground, that he puts into hell all the enemies of the political cause, which, in his eyes, was that of Italy and God.