“If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.”

“By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentleman and very worthy practitioner in Vanity Fair, who used to do little wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwards—and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather impetuous—but the honestest fellow.”

“If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations...”

“... nobody does anything for nothing. ... it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody.”

“it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody”

“She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip-shod and in curl-papers, all day.”

“I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to do—a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; ... a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy.”