Self-sacrifice which denies common sense is not a virtue. It's a spiritual dissipation.

the profession of the ministry is like matrimony: if it is possible for you to keep out of it, it's a sign that you've no business to go into it!

as everybody knows, truthfulness and agreeable manners are often divorced on the ground of incompatibility.

I'm not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. An old soul is a shameful thing.

A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar.

There's one thing that always interests me about you good people, not your certainty that the rest of us are swine, - no doubt we are, - but your certainty that your opinions are pearls.

By some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed.