He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia?

Scotland: That garret of the earth - that knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

Hope is the belief, more or less strong, that joy will come.