John Butler Yeats

“Edward F. Murphy (ed.) The Crown Treasury of Relevant Quotations (1978), pp. 5, 27,31,36, 62,81, 129, 194, 369-70, 395, 398, 405, 408, 422, 459, 469, 472, 475, 477, 488, 514, 525, 532, 539, 550, 572, 597, 599”

“You must not think I do not admire and really adore this American character, which is now growing up, even while it is so easy to laugh at and even sometimes hate. Depend upon it it is a mistake sometimes to have been too well brought up, it prevents you realising that in America everything hitherto respected including your politeness and reticence is quite out of date. Every day of my life, I meet with some fresh surprise. People will do and say anything, and except a few things like the multiplication table, nothing is sacred.”