The world never leaves one in ignorance or in peace.

There is no knife that cuts so sharply and with such poisoned blade as treachery.

Opposition to a man in love is like oil to fire.

nothing is so pleasant ... as to display your worldly wisdom in epigram and dissertation, but it is a trifle tedious to hear another person display theirs.

A man may be a great statesman, and yet dislike his wife, and like somebody else's. A man may be a great hero, and yet he may have an unseemly passion, or an unpaid tailor. But the British public does not understand this. ... It thinks, unhappily or happily as you may choose to consider, that genius should keep the whole ten commandments. Now, genius is conspicuous for breaking them.

I have met a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn't so common.

The song that we hear with our ears is only the song that is sung in our hearts.