“You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to.”

“And that's why, gentleman, if your little girl doesn't come up to scratch, it will be our painful duty to cut all your throats. Merely in a way of business, as you might say, and no offense, I hope.”

“A sensible human once said, "If people knew how much ill-feeling unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit"; and again, "She's the sort of woman who lives for others you can always tell the others by their hunted expression.”

“Virtue - even attempted virtue - brings light; indulgence brings fog.”

“We have lost the invaluable faculty of being shocked a faculty which has hitherto almost distinguished the Man or Woman from the beast or child.”

“Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.”

“There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.”

“I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.”