I set it down as a maxim that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social. - William Makepeace Thackeray

Let us be very gentle with our neighbours' failings; and forgive our friends their debts, as we hope ourselves to be forgiven.

Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, 'Tomorrow, success or failure won't matter much: and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.

The two most engaging powers of a good author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.