I have had playmates, I have had companions; In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days - All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

My theory is to enjoy life, but my practice is against it.

Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.

I hate a man who swallows [his food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.

Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.

Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity.

Positively, the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, and next to that perhaps — good works.