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

Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded.

Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.

Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.

We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.

A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.