“In my opinion," said Lydgate, "legal training only makes a man more incompetent in questions that require knowledge of another kind.”

“but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings.”

“If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.”

“You are a good young man," she said. "But I do not like husbands. I will never have another.”

“Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.”

“A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.”

“Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humouring everybody's nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humour?' said Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother's side, and looking rather absently at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with names subscribed in exquisite writing. 'The shortest way is to make your value felt, so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not.''With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Either you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellow pull you. ...”