“I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.”

“The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.”

“It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame.”

“A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.”

“But they who are unconcerned about the consequences of their actions are not therefore unconcerned about their actions.”

“Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.”

“I'll teach you differences.”

“Plutus himself,That knows the tinct and multiplying med'cine,Hath not in nature's mystery more scienceThan I have in this ring.”

“I am not bound to please thee with my answer.”

“Things are often spoke and seldom meant.”

“Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.”

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)”

“This knot of nature is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends.”

“It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity.”

“Let the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing because you you have omitted every word that he can spare.”

“A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands.”

“What a labour writing is ... making one sentence do the work of a page; that's what I call hard work.”

“Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces, which expose the whole movement.”

“It is vain to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it. It will tell itself.”

“No one who has read official documents needs to be told how easy it is to conceal the essential truth under the apparently candid and all- disclosing phrases of a voluminous and particularizing report.”

“Were all the letters sun, I could not see one.”

“O most delicate fiend!Who is't can read a woman? Is there more?”

“Hear the meaning within the word.”