The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.

I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.

To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.