The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Every dog must have his day.

What we call the Irish Brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised; and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies.

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.