If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate.

There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough.

I have no talent for certainty.

Know your own happiness.

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.

To you I shall say, as I have often said before, Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last.

What are men to rocks and mountains?