That bad letters of every kind arise from want of the habit of thinking, I cannot doubt.

I have had a great misfortune; my dear old dog is dead.

Our English people are much addicted to raising idols, and then revenging themselves on their own idolatry by knocking down and demolishing the poor bits of wood and stone that they had worshipped as gods. How many literary reputations have been so treated!

A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork.

Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden!

I prepare myself for all disappointments by expecting nothing.

I do not think very highly of Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson's old stilts.