That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing. Could I have remembered, as some men do, what I read, I should have been able to call myself an educated man. But that power I have never possessed. Something is always left--something dim and inaccurate--but still something sufficient to preserve the taste for more. I am inclined to think that it is so with most readers.

Wine is valued for its price, not its flavor.

Don't let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

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

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

I judge a man by his actions with men, much more than by his declarations Godwards - When I find him to be envious, carping, spiteful, hating the successes of others, and complaining that the world has never done enough for him, I am apt to doubt whether his humility before God will atone for his want of manliness.