A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it.

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realised.

To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice.

Oh call it by some better name, For friendship sounds too cold.

I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, these spiritual repasts-a grace before Milton-a grace before Shakespeare-a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading The Fairie Queene?