The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.

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.

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.