If men were equal to-morrow and all wore thesame coats, they would wear different coats thenext day.

[ Concluding words of the Barsetshire novels :] To meBarset has been a real county, and its city a real city, and the spires and towers have been before my eyes, and the voices of the people are knownto my ears, and the pavement of the city ways are familiar to my footsteps. . . . I have been induced to wander among them too long by my love of old friendships, and by the sweetness of old faces.

What was it the French Minister said. If it issimply difficult it is done. If it is impossible, it shall be done.

It is not the prize that can make us happy; it is not even the winning of the prize. . . . [It is] the struggle, the long hot hour of the honest fight. . . . There is no human bliss equal to twelvehours of work with only six hours in which todo it.

How seldom is it that theories stand the wear and tear of practice!

A man’s mind will very generally refuse to make itself up until it be driven and compelled by emergency.

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will be there to support you when all other resources are gone. It will be present to you when the energies of your body have fallen away from you. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little—or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.