I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.

When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. He was a religious man and he read prayers to the assembled household every morning. But he had crossed out in pencil all the passages that praised God. He said that there was nothing so vulgar as to praise people to their faces and, himself a gentleman, he could not believe that God was so ungentlemanly as to like it.

Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere.

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.

He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

She says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.