Man, while he loves, is never quite depraved.

When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think.

Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus.

Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listen had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears.

Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded.