"There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon."

"The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it."

"Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself."

"The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is."

"God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal."

"In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa."

"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance."

"When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once."

"No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any other person."

"All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others."

"Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime."

"Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing."

"Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning."

"I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable."

"Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things."

"A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing."

"To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him."

"The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather than without."

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature."

"A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget."

"He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still."

"Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone."

"The public do not know enough to be experts yet know enough to decide between them."

"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."

"People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy."

"It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us."

"He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us."

"Poetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's."

"The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything."

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing."

"In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved."

"Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so."

"Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence."

"Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him."

"The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor."

"Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes."

"The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places."

"A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends."

"Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental."

"The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions."

"If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him."

"Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ's having healed his mother-in-law."

"There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come."

"It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."

"Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them."

"All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it."

"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg."

"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself."

"Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."

"Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so."