The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.

One's mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.

That strange premature genius Chatterton has couched in one line the quintessence of what Voltaire has said in many pages: "Reason, a thorn in Revelation's side.

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

Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!

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

Art is the filigrain of a little mind, and is twisted and involved and curled, but would reach farther if laid out in a straight line.