“Equality would be a heaven, if we could attain it.”

The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.

A husband is very much like a house or a horse.

The best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you.

Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity.

Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular?

I doubt whether I ever read any description of scenery which gave me an idea of the place described.

A farmer’s horse is never lame, never unfit to go. Never throws out curbs, never breaks down before or behind.

They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind.

One can only pour out of a jug that which is in it.

One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced.

There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it.

The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world.

I hate a stupid man who can’t talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect.

Cham is the only thing to screw one up when one is down a peg.

Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant.

People seen by the mind are exactly different to things seen by the eye. They grow smaller and smaller as you come nearer down to them, whereas things become bigger.

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.

If I could always read, I should never feel the want of company.

At the age of eight, I discovered that I could write songs.

I know that if I could really understand mental illness, then it would be appropriate to make a big career shift.

Maybe there’s more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.

It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.

That’s what love does. When it’s right, it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be.