Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.
it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.
English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.
It is curious how inseparable eating and kindness are with some people.
Whatever people in general do not understand, they are al ways prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.
Nothing more strongly marks the insufficiency of luxuries than the ease with which people grow accustomed to them; they are rather known by their want than by their presence. The word 'blasé' has been coined expressly for the use of the upper classes.
I cannot see why a taste for the country should be held so very indispensable a requisite for excellence; but really people talk of it as if it were a virtue, and as if an opposite opinion was, to say the least of it, very immoral.
to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them.