"The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder."

"I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse."

"A man's love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit."

"In these days a man is nobody unless his biography is kept so far posted up that it may be ready for the national breakfast-table on the morning after his demise."

"There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel."

"They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind."

"Never think that you're not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning."

"Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures."

"Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it."

"Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early."

"It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something."