A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. - William Hazlitt

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.

The “olden times” are only such in reference to us. The past is rendered strange, mysterious, visionary, awful from this great gap in time that parts us from it, and the long perspective of waning years. Things gone by and almost forgotten, look dim and dull, uncouth and quaint, from our ignorance of them, and the mutability of customs. But in their day — they were fresh, unimpaired, in full vigour, familiar and glossy.