The triumph of hope over experience.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside

Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.

Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.