A man enjoys what he uses, not what his servants use.

A man is like a phonograph with half-a-dozen records. You soon get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor.

A man learns to skate by staggering about making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.

A man ought to be able to be fond of his wife without making a fool of himself about her.

A man who has no office to go to—I don’t care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception.

A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle class unit.

A modern gentleman is necessarily the enemy of his country. Even in war he does not fight to defend it, but to prevent his power of preying on it from passing to a foreigner. Such combatants are patriots in the same sense as two dogs fighting for a bone are lovers of animals.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavour to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

A newspaper, not having to act on its descriptions and reports, but only to sell them to idly curious people, has nothing but honor to lose by inaccuracy and unveracity.

A people that elect corrupt politicians, impostors, thieves and traitors are not victims . . . but accomplices.”—George Orwell, English author and essayist (1903 – 1950), attributed “He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.