Puns are often unacceptable to the feelings; they come like a spoonful of ice-cream in the midst of a comfortable smoking-hot steak, or as a peppery morsel when your palate was in expectation of a mild pudding.

The death of my mother permanently affects my happiness, more even than I should have anticipated, though I always knew that I must feel the separation at first as a severe wrench. But I did not apprehend, during her life, to what a degree she prevented me from feeling heart-solitude.

Much waste of words and of thought too would be avoided if disputants would always begin with a clear statement of the question, and not proceed to argue till they had agreed upon what it was that they were arguing about.

there is nothing so uncertain and slippery as fact.

I have a strong opinion that a genuine love of books is one of the greatest blessings of life for man and woman.

The desire to be the object of public attention is weak, but the excessive dread of it is but a form of vanity and over-self-contemplativeness.

Religious bigotry is a dull fire - hot enough to roast an ox, but with no lambent, luminous flame shooting up from it.