Thomas Anstey Guthrie

“Veracity, as thou wilt learn,” answered the Jinnee, “is not invariably the Ship of Safety.”

“Thou hast heard of her incomparable charms, and verily the ear may love before the eye.” ”It may,” admitted Horace, “but neither of my ears is the least in love at present.”

These statements were, as he felt even in making them, not only gratuitous, but utterly unconvincing, but he had arrived at that condition in which a man discovers with terror the unsuspected amount of mendacity latent in his system.

“How excellent is the saying of one of old: ‘He that adventureth upon matrimony is like unto one who thrusteth his hand into a sack containing many thousands of serpents and one eel. Yet, if Fate so decree, he may draw forth the eel.’”

“Wisely was it written: ‘Let him that desireth oblivion confer benefits—but the memory of an injury endureth for ever.’”

“No doubt the fault was mine,” said the Professor, in a tone that implied the opposite.

I can’t call myself a busy man—unfortunately,” said Horace, with that frankness which scorns to conceal what other people know perfectly well already.

No doubt they would tolerate him now for the Professor’s sake; but who would not rather be ignored than tolerated?

Candour’s the cement of friendship.

Models of manly beauty are rare out of novels, and seldom interesting in them.

“And you suppose that, knowing how I have changed, he will believe that!” she cried. “He will fire long before you can finish one of those fine sentences!”

He had had a warning, a practical moral lesson which had merely arrived, as such things often do, rather after date.

The knowledge that one has a remedy within reach is often as effectual as the remedy itself, if not more so.

He was not a strong-minded man; but he had one quality which is almost as valuable a safeguard against temptation as strength of mind—namely, timidity.

Two or three days at sea are equivalent to at least as many weeks on shore.

Drastic measures is Latin for a whopping.