Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.

The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.

An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.

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.

The look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world.

The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.

Elegance is something more than ease; it is more than a freedom from awkwardness or restraint. It implies, I conceive, a precision, a polish, a sparkling, spirited yet delicate.