We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.

The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot.

Every man, in judging of himself, is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of himself wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it off and confirm it.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.

A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51.