I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

If we wish ourselves to be high, we should treat that which is over us as high.

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

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 hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.

This at least should be a rule through the letter-writing world: that no angry letter be posted till four-and-twenty hours will have elapsed since it was written.