The charm of London is that you are never glad or sorry for ten minutes together; in the country you are one or the other for weeks.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.

He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.