“Wit is the fetching of congruity out of incongruity.”

A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.

Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.

The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion–a form of knowledge without the power of it.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.

One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.

The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.

Whether this happens because they stay so long and attend their work so diligently that they forget the faces and persons, which they first sat down with, or whatever it is, they seldom rise from the toilet the same woman they appeared when they began to dress

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.

I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.

Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.

This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we’ll have fun.

We’ve got rid of subeditors because we don’t need them. Because they were never necessary. They were just fetchers and gophers. They had a job, which has been superannuated by technology.

We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place.

A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.