The Marrow of Tradition

When the pride of intellect and caste is broken; when we grovel in the dust of humiliation; when sickness and sorrow come, and the shadow of death falls upon us, and there is no hope elsewhere,—we turn to God, who sometimes swallows the insult, and answers the appeal.

We are all puppets in the hands of Fate, and seldom see the strings that move us.

Those who set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts which sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly, burrowing always at the very roots of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.

Race prejudice is the devil unchained.

It was a prerogative of aristocracy, Ellis reflected, to live upon others, and the last privilege which aristocracy in decay would willingly relinquish.

Ellis had a strain of thrift, derived from a Scotch ancestry, and a tenacious memory for financial details.