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.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

The business of banking ought to be simple. If it is hard it is wrong. The only securities which a banker, using money that he may be asked at short notice to repay, ought to touch, are those which are easily saleable and easily intelligible.

An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.

Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.