We lack several of the needful qualities: we lack foresight, the sense of order and organised industry, and the strength of mind to resist the temptations following upon a great coup.

A nation of shopkeepers would not go back on the shop so completely as we do.

No nation that is essentially snobbish can be accurately summed up as a nation of shopkeepers.

The French for all their distracting gifts of art and mockery are better shopkeepers than we, largely because they are more sensibly contented.

They take short views and live each day more fully.