It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment

It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one's self anyhow - for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.

When you catch an adjective, kill it.

The true and lasting genius of humour does not drag you thus to boxes labelled 'pathos,' 'humour,' and show you all the mechanism of the inimitable puppets that are going to perform. How I used to laugh at Simon Tapperwit, and the Wellers, and a host more! But I can't do it now somehow; and time, it seems to me, is the true test of humour. It must be antiseptic.

There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers after the Truth-have you ever heard of a permanent one?

To someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.