"Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad."

"That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem."

"He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them."

"It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art."

"Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use."

"When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live"

"Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise."

"If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle."

"Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion."

"There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved."

"Sorrow is the rust of the soul and activity will cleanse and brighten it."

"The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

"To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly."

"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."

"We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself."

"Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year."

"For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die."

"It is good to love the unknown."

"I could never hate anyone I knew."

"Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral."

"The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen."

"The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth."

"Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book."

"My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more."

"I have had playmates, I have had companions; In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days - All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."

"Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other."

"The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking."

"The beggar wears all colors fearing none."

"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts."

"We grow gray in our spirit long before we grow gray in our hair."

"The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend."

"A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect."

"To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives."

"Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing."

"Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it."

"Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever."

"The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street."

"Pain is life - the sharper, the more evidence of life."

"What is reading, but silent conversation."

"Let us live for the beauty of our own reality."

"She unbent her mind afterwards - over a book."

"New Year's Day is every man's birthday."

"Lawyers, I suppose, were children once."

"I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is."

"Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves."

"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."

"It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination."

"Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage."

"I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbors about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow."

"Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor."