The making of miracles to edification was as ardently admired by pious Victorians as it was sternly discouraged by Jesus of Nazareth. Not that the Victorians were unique in this respect. Modern writers also indulge in edifying miracles though they generally prefer to use them to procure unhappy endings, by which piece of thaumaturgy they win the title of realists.
I can't think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one's grammar. It's a kind of intellectual rot that sets in, I'm afraid.
The really essential factors of success in any undertaking are money and opportunity, and as a rule, the man who can make the first can make the second.
Books... are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.
The whole of the Trivium was, in fact, intended to teach the pupil the proper use of the tools of learning.
What women want as a class is irrelevant. I want to know about Aristotle. It is true that most women care nothing about him, and a great many male undergraduates turn pale and faint at the thought of him-but I, eccentric individual that I am, do want to know about Aristotle, and I submit that there is nothing in my shape or bodily functions which need prevent my knowing about him.
For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.
I am concerned only with the proper training of the mind to encounter and deal with the formidable mass of undigested problems presented to it by the modern world. For the tools of learning are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command.
Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.
Death seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of amusement than any other single subject.
The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man - and the dogma is the drama.
She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.
The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.
There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks.
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.
The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore - on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium.
A continual atmosphere of hectic passion is very trying if you haven't got any of your own.
A human being must have occupation, of he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.
Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age.
