He never does a proper thing without giving an improper reason for it.

You know you can't be a nice girl inside if you're a dirty slut outside

You cannot have qualifications without experience; and you cannot have experience without personal interest and bias. That may not be an ideal arrangement; but it is the way the world is built and we must make the best of it.

You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days.

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you [Colonel Pickering], because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

Tulajdonképpen nem abban van a különbség, hogy az ember hogy viselkedik, hanem hogy az emberrel hogyan viselkednek. Én Higgins professzor úr számára mindig csak egy virágoslány maradok, mert Ã…' mindig úgy fog viselkedni velem, mint egy virágoslánnyal. De maga elÃ…'tt úrinÃ…' lehetek, mert maga mindig úgy fog viselkedni velem, mint egy úrinÃ…'vel.

Attempts at description are stupid. Who can all at once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances.

Her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible,—or from one of our elder poets,—in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper.

He has got no good red blood in his body, said Sir James. No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass, and it was all semicolons and parenthesis, said Mrs. Cadwallader.

When he turned his head quickly his hair seemed to shake out light, and some persons thought they saw decided genius in this coruscation. Mr. Casaubon, on the contrary, stood rayless.

She says, he is a great soul.—A great bladder for dried peas to rattle in!" said Mrs. Cadwallader.