Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.

Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic. You know in the first sum of yours I ever saw there was a mistake. You had carried two (as a cab is licensed to do), and you ought, dear Lucy, to have carried but one. Is this a trifle? What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors.

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could only have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of fame.

Find fault, when you must find fault, in private, if possible; and some time after the offense, rather than at the time.

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

A man who wishes to make his way in life could do no better than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand.