We affect to laugh at the folly of those who put faith in nostrums, but are willing to see ourselves whether there is any truth in them. - William Hazlitt

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

It should seem as if there were a few green sunny spots in the desert of life, to which we are always hastening forward: we eye them wistfully in the distance, and care not what perils or suffering we endure, so that we arrive at them at last.

Reading is perhaps the greatest pleasure you will have in life; the one you will think of longest, and repent of least.