Other people's marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.

Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them.

I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.

Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family,and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch.Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison.

Sir,’ said Stephen, ‘I read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them--I look upon good novels--as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any other, with greater breadth and depth and fewer constraints.

Compulsion is the death of friendship.

For very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary...