A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog’s ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.
A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.
Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.
Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but they are unwholesome companions for grown people.
Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.
Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.
Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.
For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die.
He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.
Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.
I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.
I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father’s religion, if they can find out what it is.
I could never hate anyone I knew.
I have had playmates, I have had companions; In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days – All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I love to lose myself in other men’s minds.
I’d like to grow very old as slowly as possible.
It is good to love the unknown.
Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.
Let us live for the beauty of our own reality.
Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.
My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.
My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it.
New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday.
Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever puts one down without the feeling of disappointment.
Nothing puzzles me more than the time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less.
Pain is life – the sharper, the more evidence of life.
Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.
Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.
She unbent her mind afterwards – over a book.
Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing.
The beggar wears all colors fearing none.
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident.
The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.
The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.
The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen.
The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one’s soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive – you are leaking.
The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.
The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.
To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.
We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.
We grow gray in our spirit long before we grow gray in our hair.
What is reading, but silent conversation.
