"I am ready to obey as a child; — but, not being a child, I think I ought to have a reason." — Anthony Trollope

Things to be done offer themselves, I suppose, because they are in themselves desirable; not because it is desirable to have something to do.

He had so accustomed himself to wield the constitutional cat-of-nine-tails, that heaven will hardly be happy to him unless he be allowed to flog the cherubim.

People seen by the mind are exactly different to things seen by the eye. They grow smaller and smaller as you come nearer down to them, whereas things become bigger.