It may be that, while we plodding realists go on, for ever preoccupied with our daily chores, abstracting a microscopic pleasure from each microscopic duty, your true romantic has the truer vision, and beholds, afar off, in all its lurid splendour and terrible proportions, the piquant adventure we call life.

One must choose between obscurity with efficiency, and fame with its inevitable collateral of bluff.

The worldly relations of men and women often form an equation that cancels out without warning when some insignificant factor has been added to either side.

A trouble is a trouble, and the general idea, in the country, is to treat it as such, rather than to snatch the knotted cords from the hand of God and deal out murderous blows.

It may be that, while we plodding realists go on, for ever preoccupied with our daily chores, abstracting a microscopic pleasure from each microscopic duty, your true romantic has the truer vision, and beholds, afar off, in all its lurid splendour and terrible proportions, the piquant adventure we call life.

An Englishman never takes his collar off when he is writing. How can you expect him to show you his soul?

Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!