I believe I once considerably scandalized her by declaring that clear soup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience.

Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it.

I hate posterity - it's so fond of having the last word.

Mother, may I go and maffick, Tear around and hinder traffic?

I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed presently. 'They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.

When people grow gradually rich their requirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while their present-giving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition of their earlier days. Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop is their only conception of the ideal gift.

People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.