“Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?”

It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little, little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of fate, and see how our destinies turn on a minute’s delay or advance.

I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.

To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don’t want a rose to sing.

Women are jealous of cigars, they regard them as a strong rival.

Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang, “Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his whole life long.”

Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.

A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess ’em.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

The best of women are hypocrites.

Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.

We can’t all be lions in this world. There must be some lambs, harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating and shearing.

The world is good natured to people who are good natured.

Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!

To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

I’ve actually not read any books on time management.

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles.

A book is just like life and anything can change.

But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.

I hate commas in the wrong places.