I hate the word 'ought' - it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.

... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification.

All beginnings are very troublesome things.

Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor - his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.

The truth is, we like to talk over our disasters, because they are ours; and others like to listen, because they are not theirs.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

A sealed book, at whose contents we tremble.