“We poor creatures are born for man’s pleasure and amusement, and destined to go through endless sufferings and trials.”

The danger to the country, to Europe, to her vast Empire, which is involved in having all these great interests entrusted to the shaking hand of an old, wild, and incomprehensible man of 82, is very great!

I positively think that ladies who are always enceinte quite disgusting; it is more like a rabbit or guinea-pig than anything else and really it is not very nice.

An ugly baby is a very nasty object – and the prettiest is frightful.

We will not have failure – only success and new learning.

Bring me a cup of tea and the ‘Times.’

I would venture to warn against too great intimacy with artists as it is very seductive and a little dangerous.

I think people really marry far too much; it is such a lottery after all, and for a poor woman a very doubtful happiness.

I am every day more convinced that we women, if we are to be good women, feminine and amiable and domestic, are not fitted to reign; at least it is they that drive themselves to the work which it entails.

That Book, the Bible, accounts for the supremacy of England. England has become great & happy by the knowledge of the true God through Jesus Christ.

Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife.

[On same-sex marriage:] No woman would do that.

Being married gives one one’s position like nothing else can.

Were women to “unsex” themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.

Give my people plenty of beer, good beer, and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them.

Nothing will turn a man’s home into a castle more quickly and effectively than a dachshund.

Just close your eyes—and think of England.

I’m trying to preach the idea that if we don’t pay attention to history we’re destined to repeat it.

The most hateful grief of all human griefs is to have knowledge of a truth, but no power over the event.

I don’t believe in life after death. But I do believe in some grinding destiny that watches over us on earth. If I didn’t, the safety valve would give and the boiler would explode.

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. Resign yourself to be the fool you are. We must always take risks. That is our destiny.

As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.