The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.

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

The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.

The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.

Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.