We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

Life is the art of being well deceived.

To-day kings, to-marrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing.

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.

I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.