The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages; from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vexed duodenum, or an agitated pylorus.

He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe.

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.

Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.

What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.