"“How excellent is the saying of one of old: ‘He that adventureth upon matrimony is like unto one who thrusteth his hand into a sack containing many thousands of serpents and one eel. Yet, if Fate so decree, he may draw forth the eel.’"

““No doubt the fault was mine,” said the Professor, in a tone that implied the opposite.”

“I can’t call myself a busy man—unfortunately,” said Horace, with that frankness which scorns to conceal what other people know perfectly well already.”

“The knowledge that one has a remedy within reach is often as effectual as the remedy itself, if not more so.”

““And you suppose that, knowing how I have changed, he will believe that!” she cried. “He will fire long before you can finish one of those fine sentences!”

“Candour’s the cement of friendship.”

“He called to mind all the millionaires he had ever read or heard of; they didn’t seem to get much fun out of their riches. The majority of them were martyrs to dyspepsia. They were often weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of their position; the only people who were unable to obtain an audience of them at any time were their friends; they lived in a glare of publicity, and every post brought them hundreds of begging letters, and a few threats; their children were in constant danger from kidnappers, and they themselves, after knowing no rest in life, could not be certain that even their tombs would be undisturbed. Whether they were extravagant or thrifty, they were equally maligned, and, whatever the fortune they left behind them, they could be absolutely certain that, in a couple of generations, it would be entirely dissipated.”