It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

Nothing more predisposes someone in our favour than to let him rob you a little.

It needs a good deal of philosophy not to be mortified by the thought of persons who have voluntarily abandoned everything that for the most of us makes life worth living and are devoid of envy of what they have missed. I have never made up my mind whether they are fools or wise men.

The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.

I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense.

An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.

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