Great Throughts Treasury

"There is a strong strain of madness in our family: if you haven?t noticed it yourself, all your friends must have."

"The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of their limitations ? that is why one should be so patient with them."

"There is nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster."

"To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely."

"To have reached thirty, said Reginald, is to have failed in life."

"There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets."

"To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn't any oneself makes one want to break most of the Commandments."

"We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart."

"Whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from Asia Minor, everyone assumes that it has been carried out "under orders" from somewhere or another; no one seems to think that there are people who might like to kill their neighbors now and then."

"When once you have taken the Impossible into your calculations its possibilities become practically limitless."

"What do you think of human intelligence? asked Mavis Pellington lamely. Of whose intelligence in particular? asked Tobermory coldly. Oh, well, mine for instance, said Mavis with a feeble laugh. You put me in an embarrassing position, said Tobermory, whose tone and attitude certainly did not suggest a shred of embarrassment. When your inclusion in this house-party was suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that you were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the precise quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy their old car. You know, the one they call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,' because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you push it."

"Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death."

"Women and elephants never forget an injury."

"You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school."

"You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return."

"Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it."

"Which reminds me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of what he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honors and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to him also. I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book. Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett."

"You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood."