Admiration involves a glorious obliquity of vision.

I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect, either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.

The critic who justly admires all kinds of things simultaneously cannot love any one of them.

Men prominent in life are mostly hard to converse with. They lack small-talk, and at the same time one doesn't like to confront them with their own great themes.

Of course we all know that Morris was a wonderful all-round man, but the act of walking round him has always tired me.

Nobody ever died of laughter.