Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors.

No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right.

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.

With the dead there is no rivalry, with the dead there is no change.

Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor.

Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions.