I do not care to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I believe he is an attorney.
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
Don’t, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.
Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire.
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.
And panting Time toil’d after him in vain.
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.
Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused.
Change is not made without inconvenience.
He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience.