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The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world.

The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.

Most of the young men rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in office the other half, — if you care about it.

The double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician’s life.

To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.

The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men.

He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not a burden.

He had married, let us say for love; — probably very much by chance.

In political matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his neighbours, — and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome.

Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.

No doubt he had acted in direct opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read by the letter, and not by the spirit.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.