No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.

I am a Tory anarchist. I should like everyone to go about doing just as he pleased - short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed.

Reverence is a good thing, and part of its value is that the more we revere a man, the more sharply are we struck by anything in him (and there is always much) that is incongruous with his greatness.

To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.

Beauty and the lust for learning have yet to be allied.

What a lurid life Oscar Wilde does lead - so full of extraordinary incidents. What a chance for the memoir writers of the next century

The loveliest face in all the world will not please you if you see it suddenly eye to eye, at a distance of half an inch from your own.