Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song.

So long as a man rides his hobbyhorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world - though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren--and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.

But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries--the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which thequickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature's works.