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

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

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.

Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid.

The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.