“Nothing surely is as potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone.”

Men are cowards before women until they become tyrants.

Beware of creating tedium!

The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature.

I am ready to obey as a child; :;but, not being a child, I think I ought to have a reason.

Like his master he is never showy. He does not paw and prance, and arch his neck, and bid the world admire his beauties…and when he is wanted, he can always do his work.

A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a certain meed of admiration.

Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and through they certainly speak the louder.

There are some achievements which are never done in the presence of those who hear of them. Catching salmon is one, and working all night is another.

I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.

A feeling of having been injured, on which his mind can brood from hour to hour, allowing him to plead his own cause in his own court, within his own heart, and always to plead it successfully.

When I find him to be envious, carping, spiteful, hating the successes of others, and complaining that the world has never done enough for him, I am apt to doubt whether his humility before God will atone for his want of manliness.

Perhaps there is no position more perilous to a man’s honesty thanthat?of knowing himselftobe quiteloved by a girl whom he almost loves himself.

Never let the estate decrease in your hands. It is only by such resolutions as that that English noblemen and English gentlemen can preserve their country. I cannot bear to see property changing hands.

If you cross the Atlantic with an American lady you invariably fall in love with her before the journey is over.

The girl can look forward to little else than the chance of having a good man for her husband; a good man, or if her tastes lie in that direction, a rich man.

Every man worships the dollar, and is down before his shrine from morning to night… Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whatever other daily services may be known to the religious houses; but the New Yorker is always on his knees.