"The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth."

Dorothy L. Sayers, Have his carcase (Sevenoaks, 1993, p.9).

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

William Shakespeare, The Tempest, IV, i, 156f.

"He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob."

W.M. Thackeray, The Book of Snobs. By one of Themselves (Gloucester, 1989, p.11)

"There sits an old lady of more than fourscore years, serene and kind, and as beautiful in her age now as in her youth, when History toasted her. What has she not seen, and what is she not ready to tell? All the fame and wit, all the rank and beauty, of more than half a century, have passed through those rooms where you have the honour of making your best bow. She is as simple now as if she had never had any flattery to dazzle her: she is never tired of being pleased and being kind. Can that have been anything but a good life which, after more than eighty years of it are spent, is so calm? Could she look to the end of it so cheerfully, if its long course had not been pure? Respect her, I say, for being so happy, now that she is old. We do not know what goodness and charity, what affections, what trials, may have gone to make that charming sweetness of temper, and complete that perfect manner. But if we do not admire and reverence such an old age as that, and get good from contemplating it, what are we to respect and admire?"

W.M. Thackeray, Sketches and Travels in London (Gloucester, 1989, pp.19-20)

"Honest men, with pipes or cigars in their mouths, have great physical advantages in conversation. You may stop talking if you like - but the breaks of silence never seem disagreeable, being filled up by the puffing of the smoke - hence here is no awkwardness in resuming the conversation - no straining for effect - entiments are delivered in a grave easy manner - the cigar harmonizes the society, and soothes at once the speaker and the ubject whereon he converses. I have no doubt that it is from the abit of smoking that Turks and American-Indians are such monstrous ell-bred men. The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the hilosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish: it generates a tyle of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and naffected [...]".

W.M. Thackeray, Sketches and Travels in London (Gloucester, 1989, p.38)

"A set has been made against clever women in all times. Take all Shakespeare's heroines - they all seem to me pretty much the same - affectionate, motherly, tender, that sort of thing. Take Scott's ladies, and other writers' - each man seems to draw from one model - an exquisite slave is what we want for the most part; a humble, flattering, smiling, child-loving, tea-making, pianoforte-playing being, who laughs at our jokes, however old they may be, coaxes and wheedles us in our humours, and fondly lies to us through life. [...]
There are many more clever women in the world than men think for. Our habit is to despise them; we believe they do not think because they do not contradict us; and are weak because they do not struggle and rise up against us. A man only begins to know women as he grows old; and for my part my opinion of their cleverness rises everyday."

W.M. Thackeray, Sketches and Travels in London (Gloucester, 1989, p.73)

"Boz, who knows life well, knows that his Miss Nancy is the most unreal fantastical personage possible; no more like a thief's mistress than one of Gesner's shepherdesses resembles a real country wench. He dare not tell the truth concerning such young ladies. They have, no doubt, virtues like other human creatures; nay, their position engenders virtues that are not called into exercise among other women. But on these an honest painter of human nature has no right to dwell; not being able to paint the whole portrait, he has no right to present one or two favourable points as characterizing the whole; and therefore, in fact, had better leave the picture alone altogether."

W.M. Thackeray, Sketches and Travels in London (Gloucester, 1989, pp.207-208)

"'Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests more than it declares'." 

Anthony Trollope, Can you forgive her? (Oxford, 1982, p.44).

"'I always think that worldliness and sentimentality are like brandy-and-water. I don't like either of them separately, but taken together they make a very nice drink." 

Anthony Trollope, Can you forgive her? (Oxford, 1982, p.293).

"You must take the world as you find it, with a struggle to be something more honest than those around you." 

Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn (Oxford, 1982, p.292).