In England it is a very dangerous handicap to have a sense of humour; and Whistler's levity had always stood in his way. - E. V. Lucas

It was Henri Taine, I think, who said that there was no volume he could not compress into a chapter, and no chapter that would not go into a sentence. Dr. Giles has carried out Taine's thrasonical brag. There is no Chinese lifetime, however crowded and illustrious, that he cannot pack into a paragraph or a page.

The initial difficulty...having been slowly overcome...all went very smoothly, and the family quickly dropped company manners and showed me what it really was. Not that the difference was very marked, but a difference of course there always is — company manners being for the most part a kind of sandpaper that removes the asperities (and occasionally the attractions) of personality.

There are moments when one is more ashamed of what is called culture than any one can ever be of ignorance.