The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time.

There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do.They can't sit over their wine;they can't play at wist;and they can't pay a lady a compliment.

Pedants, who have the least knowledge to be proud of, are impelled most by vanity.

I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.

The best men are not consistent in good-- why should the worst men be consistent in evil.

Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.