.... If every malefactor in the church were known by his face it would be necessary to prohibit the secular tongue from crying “stop thief.” Otherwise the church bells could not be heard of a pleasant Sunday. .... Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, because it is commonly employed by those from whom we do not expect it, and so passes for what it is not. .... “If people only knew how foolish it is” to take their wine with a dash of prussic acid, it is probable that they would—prefer to take it with that addition. .... “A man’s honour,” says a philosopher, “is the best protection he can have.” Then most men might find a heartless oppressor in the predatory oyster. .... The canary gets his name from the dog, an animal whom he looks down upon. We get a good many worse things than names from those beneath us; and they give us a bad name too. .... Faith is the best evidence in the world; it reconciles contradictions and proves impossibilities. It is wonderfully developed in the blind. .... He who undertakes an “Account of Idiots in All Ages” will find himself committed to the task of compiling most known biographies. Some future publisher will affix a life of the compiler. .... Gratitude is regarded as a precious virtue, because tendered as a fair equivalent for any conceivable service. .... A bad marriage is like an electric machine: it makes you dance, but you can’t let go. .... The symbol of Charity should be a circle. It usually ends exactly where it begins—at home. .... Most people redeem a promise as an angler takes in a trout; by first playing it with a good deal of line. .... It is a grave mistake to suppose defaulters have no consciences. Some of them have been known, under favourable circumstances, to restore as much as ten per cent. of their plunder. .... There is nothing so progressive as grief, and nothing so infectious as progress. I have seen an acre of cemetery infected by a single innovation in spelling cut upon a tombstone. .... It is wicked to cheat on Sunday. The law recognises this truth, and shuts up the shops. .... In the infancy of our language to be “foolish” signified to be affectionate; to be “fond” was to be silly. We have altered that now: to be “foolish” is to be silly, to be “fond” is to be affectionate. But that the change could ever have been made is significant. .... If you meet a man on the narrow crossing of a muddy street, stand quite still. He will turn out and go round you, bowing his apologies. It is courtesy to accept them. .... If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg at noon to-day, the country might be successfully invaded at one o’clock by the warlike hypocrites of Canada. .... To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil; and to pictures of the latter it has appended a tail, to represent the note of interrogation.