the most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.

The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.

The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

The perfectly natural thing to do with an unreadable book is to give it away; and the publication, for more than a quarter of a century, of volumes which fulfilled this one purpose and no other is a pleasant proof, if proof were needed, of the business principles which underlay the enlightened activity of publishers.