It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play.

The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste.

A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them

I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth... I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.

Spleen can subsist on any kind of food.

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.

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