Of all animals, he alone attains to the Contemplative Life.

I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, for a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

I am the batsman and the bat, / I am the bowler and the ball, / The umpire, the pavilion cat, / The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.

He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.

O grant me a house by the beach of a bay, Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers! And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

. . . had I a river I would gladly let all honest anglers that use the fly cast line in it, but, but where there is no protection, then nets, poison, dynamite, slaughter of fingerlings, and unholy baits devastate the fish, so that 'free fishing' spells no fishing at all.

Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-postsfor support rather than illumination.