I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.

He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and we told him that it had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other that we thought it would...

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.

I don’t know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.

Um auf das Faltblatt für Leberpillen zurückzukommen, so trafen die Symptome ohne jeden Zweifel auf mich zu, vor allem das der ‘generellen Aversion gegen physische und mentale Anstrengungen’. Man kann sich gar nicht vorstellen, wie...

I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction...

A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is around us. In its light our cares of the working day grow small and trivial, and bread and cheese—ay, and even kisses—do not seem the only things...

We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.

It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so.

As our means increase, so do our desires;and we ever stand midway between the two.

I don’t understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.

(Speaking of the Cistercian monks) A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature’s voices all around them–the soft singing of the waters, the wisperings...

There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not...

It always has been and always will be the same. The old folk of our grandfathers’ young days sang a song bearing exactly the same burden; and the young folk of to-day will drone out...

There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies’ reservoir, you will gain...

I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.

He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the...

I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn’t elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest...

You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris- no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never “weeps, he knows not why.” If Harris’s eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is...

After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and explains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had been murdered in that very bed, or who...

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings...

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then...

If you are foolish enough to be contented, don’t show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don’t you won’t...

A woman never thoroughly cares for herlover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you havesnapped your fingers in Fortune’s face and turned on your heel that shebegins to...

It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are...

I look in the glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquely rugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, and wonder what right I have to go about making God’s...

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick – on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet,...

Harris, as he occasionally explains to George and to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak more correctly, a daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt cease practising catherine wheels in...

If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don’t let it stand more than three minutes,) it says to the brain, “Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and...

It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can...

Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a “T.” I don’t know what a “T” is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and- butter and cake AD LIB., and is cheap at...

With me, it was my liver that was out of order. […] I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”What I suffer in...

Are we labouring at some Work too vast for us to perceive? Are our passions and desires mere whips and traces by the help of which we are driven? Any theory seems more hopeful than...

I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.