A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of non pertinent correspondence, an odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity.

Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.

Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal.

A presentation copy, reader,-if haply you are yet innocent of such favours-is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author.

I have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you mountaineers can have done with dead nature.

Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.