There is such a difference between life and theory.

It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.

What is there that money will not do?

I do not know whether there be, as a rule, more vocal expression of the sentiment of love between a man and a woman, than there is between two thrushes. They whistle and call to each other, guided by instinct rather than by reason.

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.

I never knew a government yet that wanted to do anything.

It is the test of a novel writer‘s art that he conceal his snake-in-the-grass; but the reader may be sure that it is always there.

There is no road to wealth so easy and respectable as that of matrimony.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

There are worse things than a lie… I have found… that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little – or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.

As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.

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.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

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

Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little questions about horseflesh and music about affairs masculine and feminine, then take the leap in the dark.

Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.

A woman’s life is not perfect or whole till she has added herself to a husband. Nor is a man’s life perfect or whole till he has added to himself a wife.

Wine is valued by its price, not its flavour.

Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe it possible that a foreigner should in any respect be wiser than ourselves. If any such point out to us our follies, we at once claim those follies as the special evidence of our wisdom.

No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

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

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?…Was ever anything so civil?

Neither money nor position can atone to me for low birth.

Above all else, never think you’re not good enough.

It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.

Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

It is very hard, that necessity of listening to a man who says nothing

A fellow oughtn’t to let his family property go to pieces.

It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement.

Never think that you’re not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

I hold that gentleman to be the best-dressed whose dress no one observes.

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

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

I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.

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

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Taken altogether, Washington as a city is most unsatisfactory, and falls more grievously short of the thing attempted than any other of the great undertakings of which I have seen anything in the United States.

They are best dressed, whose dress no one observes.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.