We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.

Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!

A man of sense, though born without wit, often lives to have wit. His memory treasures up ideas and reflections; he compares themwith new occurrences, and strikes out new lights from the collision. The consequence is sometimes bons mots, and sometimes apothegms.

I can forgive injuries, but never benefits.

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.

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.

[The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste--or is but half taste.