The most powerful book in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century is the check-book.

Adversity is the touchstone of character: it is not in success but in misfortune that hidden powers bear fruit.

Sunshine is more health-giving than pills and potions: and travel in foreign lands is a mental tonic, which feeds the mind even if it empties the pocket.

We all try to be alike in our youth, and individual in our middle age ... although we sometimes mistake eccentricity for individuality.

He who buys what he does not want ends in wanting what he cannot buy.

Civilisation makes us all as alike as peas in a pod, and it is the very uncouth - uncivilised, if you will - element which individualises nations.

No Southern people ever seem to possess the energy of their Northern brothers, and in Sicily a dolce far niente life is much enjoyed. Time is no object. According to Pliny, Aristhomacus watched the life of the bee carefully for fifty-eight years, which is just the sort of work a Sicilian of to-day would like.

Theatrical work means too much work or none.

Marriage with love is entering heaven with one's eyes shut, but marriage without love is entering hell with them open.

Many people with a wild desire to act prove failures on the stage, their inclinations are greater than their powers. Rarely is it the other way.

Organised brigandage has ceased to exist, but murder and highway robbery are still far too common in the less frequented districts. Travellers rarely suffer to-day, however. It is the wealthy inhabitants who run risks at the hand of the mafia, or lawless Sicilian.

Never has the theatrical profession been more overcrowded than at the present moment.

Few authors are so interesting as their work - they generally reserve their wit or trenchant sarcasm for their books.