“The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world’s mirth.”

Who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.

Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.

The man who never tells an unpalatable truth ‘at the wrong time’ (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured.

Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.

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.

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.

it is not every tourist who bubbles over with mirth, and that unquenchable spirit of humor which turns a trial into a blessing.