Wisdom is to have dreams big enough not to lose sight when we pursue them.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.

The English country-gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.