All sweeping assertions are erroneous.

in came ... a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood.

it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

Good taste is his religion, his morality, his standard, and his test.

Strange the affection which clings to inanimate objects - objects which cannot even know our love! But it is not return that constitutes the strength of an attachment.

English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.

The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.