Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.

They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.

Let me be dressed as I will, yet flies worms and flowers exceed me still.

Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead?

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

M. Zola is determined to show that, if he has not got genius, he can at least be dull.