[ On overindulgence in drink, to the extent of becoming a beast :] He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

[ On the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland :] Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

[ Referring to his fits of melancholia :] The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive. . . . When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking. . . . Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from a habitation like this?

[ Replying to the question, “What, have you not read it through?” :] No, Sir, do you read books through?

[ To a follower of George Berkeley’s philosophy, which held that things exist only insofar as they are perceived by a mind :] Pray, Sir, don’t leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.

[ To a woman who asked him why he had defined pastern in his Dictionary of the English Language as a horse’s knee :] Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.

[ To two women who commended him on his omission of vulgar words from his Dictionary of the English Language:] What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?

[ When asked what he considered to be the real value of the Thrale Brewery, which, as executor, he was attempting to sell :] We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

[Quotation] is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

“Enlarge my life with multitude of days!” In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays: Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.