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.

Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love, and respect.

Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.

People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom, or their lack of imagination

Some men have only one book in them, others a library.

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.

When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.