“And better had they ne’er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.”

Do not Christians and Heathens, and Jews and Gentiles, and poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?

Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word never.

The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man’s heart through half the year.

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.

Great talent has always a little madness mixed up with it.

Where is the coward that would not dare to fight for such a land as Scotland?

Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.

A glass of good wine is a gracious creature, and reconciles poor mortality to itself and that is what few things can do.

Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!

Good Night, Goodnight, Dream.

Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion.

Blessed be his name, who hath appointed the quiet night to follow the busy day, and the calm sleep to refresh the wearied limbs and to compose the troubled spirit.

It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back and aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart.