A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.

The maxim of science is simply that of common sense-simple cases first; begin with seeing how the main force acts when there is as little as possible to impede it, and when you thoroughly comprehend that, add to it in succession the separate effects of each of the incumbering and interfering agencies.

A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition'; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards

Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.

The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms and habits and artifices by which less able and less active people are kept up to their labors.