I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.

When Shakespeare copied chroniclers verbatim, it was because he knew they were good enough for his audiences. In a more polished age he who could so move our passions, could surely have performed the easier task of satisfying our taste.

It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.

Serendipity... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.

I have sometimes seen women, who would have been sensible enough, if they would have been content not to be called women of sense--but by aiming at what they had not, they only proved absurd--for sense cannot be counterfeited.

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