The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.

Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.

One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.

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

Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it