The beggar is the only person in the universe not obliged to study appearance.

Books and Reading

Borrowers of books --those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

Children

When I consider how little of a rarity children are -- that every street and blind alley swarms with them -- that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance -- that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these bargains -- how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, etc. -- I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them.

Deeds and Good Deeds

The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

Friends and Friendship

Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see another mountain in my life.

Illness

To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.

Reputation

For God's sake (I never was more serious) don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print... substitute drunken dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, stuttering, or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the gentleman in question.

Teachers and Teaching

Why are we never quite at ease in the presence of a schoolmaster? Because we are conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.