“A lady, resident in Devonshire, going into one of her parlors, discovered a young ass, who had found his way into the room, and carefully closed the door upon himself. He had evidently not been long in this situation before he had nibbled a part of Cicero’s Orations, and eaten nearly all the index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a large part of a volume of La Bruyère’s Maxims in French, and several pages of Cecilia. He had done no other mischief whatever, and not a vestige remained of the leaves that he had devoured.”—Pierce Egan.
“The treatment of the illustrious dead by the quick, often reminds me of the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the skull of poor defunct Yorick.”—W. H. B.
“Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent, nisi se jam pervenisse putassent.”
“There’s nothing so amusing as human nature, but then you must have some one to laugh with.”