. . . it a great error to waste young gentlemen's years so long in learning Latin by so tedious a grammar.

I'm using a part of my brain that I haven't used since school, learning the French grammar.

The Duke of Buckingham gave me once a short but severe character of the two brothers. It was the more severe, because it was true: the King (he said) could see things if he would, and the Duke would see things if he could.

. . . was apt to suffer things to run on till there was a great heap of papers laid before him, so then he signed them a little too precipitately.

He [Halifax] had said that he had known many kicked downstairs, but he never knew any kicked upstairs before.

That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone