A vow is a snare for sin

The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating comick characters, or of filling tragedy with poetical images, must be the gift of nature, which no instruction nor labour can supply; but the art of dramatick disposition, the contexture of the scenes, the involution of the plot, the expedients of suspension, and the strategems of surprise, are to be learned by practice.