The word 'idiot' comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: men are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not the details indicative of their nature.

A good cause has to be careful of the company it keeps.

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

it is necessary that we should all have a little of the will to die, because otherwise we would find the performance of our biological duty of death too difficult.

Domesticity is essentially drama, for drama is conflict, and the home compels conflict by its concentration of active personalities in a small area. The real objection to domesticity is that it is too exciting.

Like all bad drivers, he [Henry Andrews] thought he was the best driver in the world...

The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy.