George Meredith

“ As faith comes—no saying how; one swears by them As if she had never heard him previously enunciate the formula As little trouble as the heath when the woods are swept As if the age were the injury! As for titles, the way to defend them is to be worthy of them As fair play as a woman's lord could give her As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire As in all great oratory! ”

“ Snatch her from a possessor who forfeited by undervaluing her Snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer So the frog telleth tadpoles So it is when you play at Life! When you will not go straight So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat So says the minute Years are before you So indulgent when they drop their blot on a lady's character So much for morality in those days! ”

“ I've got the habit Idea is the only vital breath Ideas in gestation are the dullest matter you can have If we are really for Nature, we are not lawless If there's no doubt about it, how is it I have a doubt about it? If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? If I love you, need you care what anybody else thinks If we are to please you rightly, always allow us to play First If he had valued you half a grain less, he might have won you If the world is hostile we are not to blame it If we are robbed, we ask, How came we by the goods? ”

“ Is it any waste of time to write of love? It 's us hard ones that get on best in the world It was harder to be near and not close It is not high flying, which usually ends in heavy falling It is no insignificant contest when love has to crush self-love It would be hard! ”

“ Never fell far short of outstripping the sturdy pedestrian Time Never pretend to know a girl by her face Nevertheless, inclinations are an infidelity Next door to the Last Trump Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful No nose to the hero, no moral to the tale No runner can outstrip his fate No companionship save with the wound they nurse No Act to compel a man to deny what appears in the papers No great harm done when you're silent No heart to dare is no heart to love! ”

“ I can't bear that class of people Old houses are doomed to burnings Old age is a prison wall between us and young people Omnipotence, which is in the image of themselves On a morning when day and night were made one by fog On the threshold of Puberty, there is one Unselfish Hour On which does the eye linger longest— which draws the heart? ”

“ Welcomed and lured on an adversary to wild outhitting Well, sir, we must sell our opium Welsh blood is queer blood Went into endless invalid's laughter Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty What might have been What the world says, is what the wind says What will be thought of me? not a small matter to any of us What he did, she took among other inevitable matters What a stock of axioms young people have handy What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature What else is so consolatory to a ruined man? ”

“ Beyond a plot of flowers, a gold-green meadow dipped to a ridge Bitten hard at experience, and know the value of a tooth Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss Botched mendings will only make them worse Bound to assure everybody at table he was perfectly happy Bounds of his intelligence closed their four walls Boys, of course—but men, too! ”

“ We are good friends till we quarrel again We are chiefly led by hope We have a system, not planned but grown We can bear to fall; we cannot afford to draw back We can't hope to have what should be We don't know we are in halves We must fawn in society We never see peace but in the features of the dead We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited We dare not be weak if we would We do not see clearly when we are trying to deceive We women can read men by their power to love We were unarmed, and the spectacle was distressing We trust them or we crush them We shall go together ”

“ Americans forgivingly remember, without mentioning Amiable mirror as being wilfully ruffled to confuse Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes Amused after their tiresome work of slaughter An edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer An obedient creature enough where he must be An angry woman will think the worst An incomprehensible world indeed at the bottom and at the top An instinct labouring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity An old spoiler of women is worse than one spoiled by them! ”

“ I don't know them There are women who go through life not knowing love There's nothing like a metaphor for an evasion There's not an act of a man's life lies dead behind him There's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off They have no sensitiveness, we have too much They may know how to make themselves happy in their climate They dare not. ”

“ No stopping the Press while the people have an appetite for it No word is more lightly spoken than shame No flattery for me at the expense of my sisters No man has a firm foothold who pretends to it No enemy's shot is equal to a weak heart in the act No man can hear the words which prove him a prophet (quietly) No conversation coming of it, her curiosity was violent No intoxication of hot blood to cheer those who sat at home No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is No love can be without jealousy No! Gentlemen don't fling stones ”

“ But is there such a thing as happiness But had sunk to climb on a firmer footing By our manner of loving we are known By forbearance, put it in the wrong By resisting, I made him a tyrant By nature incapable of asking pardon Cajoled like a twenty-year-old yahoo at college Call of the great world's appetite for more (Invented news) Calm fanaticism of the passion of love Can you not be told you are perfect without seeking to improve Can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks are tinted Can a man go farther than his nature? ”

“ Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? Whole body of fanatics combined to precipitate the devotion Whose bounty was worse to him than his abuse Why should these men take so much killing? Why, he'll snap your head off for a word Why he enjoyed the privilege of seeing, and was not beside her Wife and no wife, a prisoner in liberty Wilfrid perceived that he had become an old man Will not admit the existence of a virtue in an opposite opinion William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer Win you—temperately, let us hope ”

“ We're all of us hit at last, and generally by our own weapon We're a peaceful people, but 'ware who touches us We're smitten to-day in our hearts and our pockets We've all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us Weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full one Weak reeds who are easily vanquished and never overcome Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos on their side Weather and women have some resemblance they say Weighty little word—woman's native watchdog and guardian (No!) ”

“ Philosophy has no forgiveness Religion is the one refuge from women Reluctant to take the life of flowers for a whim Remarked that the young men must fight it out together Repeatedly, in contempt of the disgust of iteration Reproof of such supererogatory counsel Requiring natural services from her in the button department Respect one another's affectations Respected the vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower Revived for them so much of themselves Rewards, together with the expectations, of the virtuous Rhoda will love you. ”

“ A bird that won't roast or boil or stew A woman, and would therefore listen to nonsense A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle A great oration may be a sedative A very doubtful benefit A generous enemy is a friend on the wrong side A woman is hurt if you do not confide to her your plans A woman who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of civilization A style of affable omnipotence about the wise youth A maker of Proverbs—what is he but a narrow mind wit A fortress face ”

“ At least it allows time for them Fantastical Far higher quality is the will that can subdue itself to wait Fast growing to be an eccentric by profession Fatal habit of superiority stopped his tongue Father and she were aware of one another without conversing Father used to say, four hours for a man, six for a woman Favour can't help coming by rotation Fear nought so much as Fear itself Feel no shame that I do not feel! ”

“ Boys are unjust Boys who can appreciate brave deeds are capable of doing them Braggadocioing in deeds is only next bad to mouthing it Brains will beat Grim Death if we have enough of them Brief negatives are not re-assuring to a lover's uneasy mind British hunger for news ”

“ In Italy, a husband away, ze friend takes title In truth she sighed to feel as he did, above everybody Incapable of putting the screw upon weak excited nature Incessantly speaking of the necessity we granted it unknowingly Inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she sought Increase of dissatisfaction with the more she got Indirect communication with heaven Inducement to act the hypocrite before the hypocrite world Indulged in their privilege of thinking what they liked Infallibility of our august mother Infants are said to have their ideas, and why not young ladies? ”

“ Obedience oils necessity Obeseness is the most sensitive of our ailments Objects elevated even by a decayed world have their magnetism Observation is the most, enduring of the pleasures of life Occasional instalments—just to freshen the account Official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one Oggler's genial piety made him shrink with nausea Oh! ”

“ The gallant cornet adored delicacy and a gilded refinement The sentimentalist goes on accumulating images The dismally-lighted city wore a look of Judgement terrible to see The kindest of men can be cruel The night went past as a year The social world he looked at did not show him heroes The overwise themselves hoodwink The king without his crown hath a forehead like the clown The curse of sorrow is comparison! ”

“ Cannot be any goodness unless it is a practiced goodness Canvassing means intimidation or corruption Capacity for thinking should precede the act of writing Capricious potentate whom they worship Careful not to smell of his office Carry explosives and must particularly guard against sparks Carry a scene through in virtue's name and vice's mask Causes him to be popularly weighed Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies Challenged him to lead up to her desired stormy scene Charges of cynicism are common against all satirists Charitable mercifulness ”

“ Damsel who has lost the third volume of an exciting novel Dangerous things are uttered after the third glass Dark-eyed Renee was not beauty but attraction Days when you lay on your back and the sky rained apples Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers Death is always next door Death within which welcomed a death without Death is only the other side of the ditch Death is our common cloak ”

“ They sound like blessed things Lawyers hold the keys of the great world Lay no petty traps for opportunity Laying of ghosts is a public duty Leader accustomed to count ahead upon vapourish abstractions Learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them Learn—principally not to be afraid of ideas Led him to impress his unchangeableness upon her Lend him your own generosity Lengthened term of peace bred maggots in the heads of the people Lest thou commence to lie—be dumb! ”

“ Mindless, he says, and arrogant Minutes taken up by the grey puffs from their mouths Mistake of the world is to think happiness possible to the sense Mistaking of her desires for her reasons Modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity Money is of course a rough test of virtue Money's a chain-cable for holding men to their senses Moral indignation is ever consolatory Morales, madame, suit ze sun More argument I cannot bear More culpable the sparer than the spared Most youths are like Pope's women ”

“ Discreet play with her eyelids in our encounters Disqualification of constantly offending prejudices Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur Distaste for all exercise once pleasurable Distinguished by his not allowing himself to be provoked Distrust us, and it is a declaration of war Dithyrambic inebriety of narration Divided lovers in presence Do I serve my hand? or, Do I serve my heart? Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? ”

“ Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change Critical fashion of intimates who know as well as hear Critical in their first glance at a prima donna Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite Curious thing would be if curious things should fail to happen Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched.... ”

“ And not be beaten by an acknowledged defeat And never did a stroke of work in my life And life said, Do it, and death said, To what end? Anecdotist to slaughter families for the amusement Anguish to think of having bent the knee for nothing Anticipate opposition by initiating measures Any man is in love with any woman Any excess pushes to craziness Appealed to reason in them ”

“ Feel they are not up to the people they are mixing with Feeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being Feigned utter condemnation to make partial comfort acceptable Fell to chatting upon the nothings agreeably and seriously Feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness Feminine ”

“ Bear in mind that we are sentimentalists—The eye is our servant Beauchamp's career Beautiful servicelessness Beautiful women in her position provoke an intemperateness Beautiful women may believe themselves beloved Beauty is rare ”