The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.

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.

Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.

Two clergymen disputing whether ordination would be valid without the imposition of both hands, the more formal one said, "Do you think the Holy Dove could fly down with only one wing?

To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know.

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.

Serendipitous discoveries are made by chance, found without looking for them but possible only through a sharp vision and sagacity, ready to see the unexpected and never indulgent with the apparently unexplainable.