Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.

[T]he 47th proposition in Euclid might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; and therefore if Lord Hawkesbury hates the abstract truths of science as much as he hates concrete truth in human affairs, now is his time for getting rid of the multiplication table, and passing a vote of censure upon the pretensions of the hypotenuse.

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.

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.

No furniture is so charming as books.

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

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.