People that trust themselves a dozen miles from the city, in strange houses, with servants they don't know, needn't be surprised if they wake up some morning and find their throats cut.

Every crucial experience can be regarded either as a setback, or the start of a wonderful new adventure, it depends on your perspective!

Men were not equal in the effort they made, nor did equal efforts bring equal result. ... Equality of opportunity, yes. Equality of effort and result, no.

[On the Irish:] Strange race ... Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil.

It was said of Miss Letitia that when money came into her possession it went out of circulation.

there is something shameful about the death of a play. It does not die with pity, but contempt. A book may fail, but who is there to know it? It dies and is buried, and is decently interred on the bookseller's shelf; but the play dies to laughter, to scorn and disdain.

It is only in his head that man is heroic; in the pit of his stomach he is always a coward.