I had this attributed to Robert Burton, but cannot find it in the Anatomy of Melancholy. It may possibly be from Richard Brathwaite, whose works I think were at one time attributed to Burton; but I have no opportunity of consulting them.
I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good work, therefore, I can do or show to any fellow creature, let me do it now! Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
William Penn.
I find that there has been much discussion in Notes and Queries and elsewhere as to the origin of this quotation, and it is now usually attributed to the French-American Quaker, Stephen Grellet. As, however, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations gives “I shall not pass this way again” as a favourite saying of William Penn’s, it seems more reasonable to consider him the author of the above.
Youth is a blunder, Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.
Disraeli (Coningsby).
She went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple pie. Just then, a great she-bear coming down the street poked its nose into the shop-window. “What! no soap?” So he died, and she (very imprudently) married the barber. And there were present at the wedding the Joblillies, and the Piccannies, and the Gobelites, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little button on top. So they all set to playing Catch-who-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.