“It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.”

Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.

An appreciation of words is so rare that everybody naturally thinks he possesses it, and this universal sentiment results in the misuse of a material whose beauty enriches the loving student beyond the dreams of avarice.

It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.

English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.

It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little.

It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.

A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion. Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever and generally stopping before it gets there.

The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.

Lovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.

The age of credulity is every age the world has ever known. Men have always turned from the ascertained, which is limited and discouraging, to the dubious, which is unlimited and full of hope for everybody.

So much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . .

If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.