“Lawyers I suppose were children once.”
“He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.”
“The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.”
“The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.”
“Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.”
“Borrowers of books --those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.”
“How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty.”
“Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.”
“Presents, I often say, endear absents.”
“The vices of some men are magnificent.”
“The beggar wears all colors fearing none.”
“To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.”
“A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.”
“Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.”
“Pain is life -- the sharper, the more evidence of life.”
“My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.”
“The beggar is the only person in the universe not obliged to study appearance.”
“He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality.”
“'Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.”
“Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.”
“Don't introduce me to that man! I want to go on hating him, and I can't hate a man whom I know.”
“In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world.”
“Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever puts one down without the feeling of disappointment.”
“The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.”
“The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.”
“Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.”
“Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but they are unwholesome companions for grown people.”
“I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think; books think for me.”
“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.”
“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.”