A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige throughbeing mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.

International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster.

Economists are like Aeolian harps, and the sounds that issue from them are determined by the winds that blow.

Marriage had certain commercial advantages. By it the man secures the exclusive right to the woman's body and by it, the woman binds the man to support her during the rest of her life.... A more disgraceful bargain was never struck.

Whatever happens, never forget that people would rather be led to perdition by a man, than to victory by a woman.

a good oyster cannot please the palate as acutely as a bad one can revolt it, and a good oyster cannot make him who eats it live for ever though a bad one can make him dead for ever.