How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

The virtue of some people consists wholly in condemning the vices in others.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in the best order

If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake - Aye, what then?