How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar!
Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.
The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?
To what a bad choice is many a worthy woman betrayed, by that false and inconsiderate notion, That a reformed rake makes the best husband!
A good man will extend his munificence to the industrious poor of all persuasions reduced by age, infirmity, or accident; to thosewho labour under incurable maladies; and to the youth of either sex, who are capable of beginning the world with advantage, but have not the means.
We have nothing to do, but to choose what is right, to be steady in the pursuit of it, and leave the issue to Providence.
We can all be good when we have no temptation or provocation to the contrary.
Let every action aim solely at the common good.
Fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and - as George Orwell said - “old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist” and if we get our way - Shakespeare still read even in school.
I write music just for me. I'm certainly not good enough to do it on any kind of a level but I enjoy that time because it's quiet.
Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases.