“What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery!”

“I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else... I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road.”

“All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The reflection that they-like Columbus-didn't discover what they expected to discover, and didn't discover what they started out to discover, doesn't trouble them. All they remember is that they discovered America; they forget that they started out to discover some patch or corner of India.”

“Ah, if he could only die temporarily!”

“My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.”

“Love sees with the heart and not with mind.”

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

“Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought.”

“What, no more ceremony? See, my women! Against the blown rose may they stop their nose That kneel'd unto the buds.”

“Much rain wears the marble.”

“When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand.”

“Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had rather lie in the woolen.”

“There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail.”

“I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster”

“Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.”

“Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds.”

“The will is deaf and hears no heedful friends.”

“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”

“He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”

“Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought.”