“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

“One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.”

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet—”

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.”

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”

“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”