Poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day, or Warren's blackin' or Rowland's oil, or some o' them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy.

I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee.

Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

Why then we should drop into poetry.

Mankind was my business... charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business.

it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

There is no such passion in human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen.