Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.

It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.

There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass ""no day without a line""-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.

Dandyism is a variety of genius.

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.