Minerva House ... was 'a finishing establishment for young ladies,' where some twenty girls of the ages from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing.

Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

'I am ruminating,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'on the strange mutability of human affairs.' 'Ah! I see - in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. Phi…

I used to sit, think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the lid on.

It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human b…

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be rooted out; not any particular manifestation of that …