“if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.”

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.

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.

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.

Whether the family of the Clarkes were of Norman extraction cannot be easily ascertained.