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

The Americans are certainly hero-worshipers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.

Everything popular is wrong.

"Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information." "I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand." "Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?" "I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person."

Though one can dine in New York, one could not dwell there.

To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.