The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech. Virtue is insufficient temptation. Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who looks at it when it has been in the house three days? We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them. A doctor's reputation is made by the number of eminent men who die under his care. A lifetime of happiness? No man could bear it: it would be hell on earth. Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. |