They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.

A Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull.

Life will always remain a gamble, with prizes sometimes for the imprudent, and blanks so often to the wise.

The world must be rather a rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate each other most cordially.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

I saw a great Newfoundland dog the other day sitting in front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in Regent's Circus, and examining himself with an amount of smug satisfaction that I have never seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meeting.

Life is a thing to be lived, not spent; to be faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.