A man can't do what he likes with his coverts.

Never let the estate decrease in your hands. It is only by such resolutions as that that English noblemen and English gentlemen can preserve their country. I cannot bear to see property changing hands.

That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.

I have read - nay, I have bought! - Carlyle's 'Latter Day Pamphlets,' and look on my eight shillings as very much thrown away. To me it appears that the grain of sense is so smothered up in a sack of the sheerest trash, that the former is valueless....I look on him as a man who was always in danger of going mad in literature and who has now done so.

I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.

When a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts, he always goes to the British Museum.

I don't like anybody or anything," said Lucinda. Yes, you do;--you like horses to ride, and dresses to wear.