“Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.”

“It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.”

“All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.”

“If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.”

“If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.”

“The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple lover of truth, especially if on very high grounds, as a religious or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien.”

“The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.”

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is a fateful fatalistic apathy.”

“O! that a man might know The end of this day's business, ere it come; But it sufficeth that the day will end, And then the end is known.”

“Cease to lament for that thou canst not help; and study help for that which thou lamentest.”

“Be still prepared for death: and death or life shall thereby be the sweeter.”

“The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.”

“Why has my motley diary no jokes? Because it is a soliloquy and every man is grave alone.”

“It is my belief, you cannot deal with the most serious things in the world unless you understand the most amusing.”