There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.

It is only necessary to raise a bugbear before the English imagination in order to govern it at will. Whatever they hate or fear, they implicitly believe in, merely from the scope it gives to these passions.

The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.