Since the publication of his first book he had avoided as far as possible all knowledge of what the critics had to say about him; his nervous tempera… - George Gissing

Why, who are the real social reformers? The men who don’t care a scrap for the people, but take up ideas because they can make capital out of them. It isn’t idealists who do the work of the world, but the hard-headed, practical, selfish men. A big employer of labour ‘ll do more good in a day, just because he sees profit’ll come of it, than all the mooning philanthropists in a hundred years.

Time is money — says the vulgarest saw known to any age or people. Turn it round about, and you get a precious truth — money is time. [...] What are we doing all our lives but purchasing, or trying to purchase, time? And most of us, having grasped it with one hand, throw it away with the other.

Well, Maud made a mistake, let us say. Dolomore is a clown, and now she knows it.