“Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.”

Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

I love everything that’s old, – old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, ‘Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

They say women and music should never be dated.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.