It is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its hinges.

Wealth is good, and if it comes our way we will take it; but a gentleman does not sell himself for wealth.

Adventurer: he that goes to meet whatever may come. Well, that is what we all do in the world one way or another.

It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't like that. This is by the way.

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

A sharp spear needs no polish.

There is no such things as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature.