“I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.”

It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

Even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week.

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism.

We must accept life for what it actually is – a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.

Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer.

The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy.

Absences are a good influence in love and keep it bright and delicate.

No man is useless while he has a friend.

Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he is of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly.

We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series.

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it.