Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds - habits and novelty.

Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.

It is a proof of boorishness to confer a favor with a bad grace; it is the act of giving that is hard and painful. How little does a smile cost?

I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.

There is what is called the highway to posts and honor, and there is a cross and by way, which is much the shortest.