Let the French but have England, and they won't want to conquer it.

When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology told him all the vices were enclosed in Pandora's box. "What! all!" said the Prince. "Yes, all." "No," said the Prince; "curiosity must have been without.

The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.

The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.

Lord Bath used to say of women, who are apt to say that they will follow their own judgment, that they could not follow a worse guide.

Shakespeare had no tutors but nature and genius. He caught his faults from the bad taste of his contemporaries. In an age still less civilized Shakespeare might have been wilder, but would not have been vulgar.

Our [British] summers are often, though beautiful for verdure, so cold, that they are rather cold winters.