"At that comfortable tavern on Pontchartrain, we had a ' than which a better was never eaten at : and not the least headache in the morning, I give you my word: on the contrary, you only wake with a sweet refreshing thirst for claret and water."

"Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbour is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper, excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat."

"We who have lived before railways were made, belong to another world. […] It was only yesterday; but what a gulph between now and then? Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armour, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, ancient Britons, painted blue, and so forth—all these belong to the old period. […] But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. […] We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark."

"The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair […,] it stings me now as I write."

"Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them."

"Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them—almost all women;—a vast number of clever, hard-headed men."

"George, be a King!"

"It is to the middle class we must look for the safety of England."

"Bravery never goes out of fashion."

"We are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have any who love you, cling to them, and thank God."

"Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you."

"Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries!—what worthy man does not keep those in mind?"

"To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained — who can say this is not greatness?"

"'Tis hard with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have even a life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most, some forty years' lease."

"If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied."

"Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish."

"Who does not believe his first passion eternal?"

"I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses."

"He that has ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton."

"I would rather make my name than inherit it."

"Love seems to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond bosoms, when we also are gone?"

"When a man is in love with one woman in a family, it is astonishing how fond he becomes of every person connected with it."

"Is Beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?"

"Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered."

"The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is for ever in a passion."

"The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter’s bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task; And, when he’s laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that’s anything but gay."

"Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang: “Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his whole life long!”"

"Charlotte, having seen his body Borne before her on a shutter, Like a well-conducted person, Went on cutting bread and butter."

"Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter; Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter."

"Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin, That never has known the barber’s shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin,— Wait till you come to Forty Year."

"Christmas is here: Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we: Little we fear Weather without, Sheltered about The Mahogany Tree."

"This a noble dish is— A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo."

"People hate, as they love, unreasonably."

"Bad husbands will make bad wives."

"If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and if we die deplores us forever and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with the pure soul beyond death; surely it shall be immortal!"

"Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion; and, I believe, what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed."

"To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well, who shall demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing."

"The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?"

"What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes."

"The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors."

"What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables."

"Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it."

"We love being in love, that's the truth on't."

"Dick never thought that his bottle companion was a butt to aim at—only a friend to shake by the hand."

"I think Steele shone rather than sparkled."

"If there is a verity in wine, according to the old adage, what an amiable-natured character Dick's must have been! In proportion as he took in wine he overflowed with kindness."

"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write."

"'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel."

"'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry — every man of every nation has done that — 'tis the living up to it that is difficult, as I know to my cost."

"We see flowers of good blooming in foul places."