Samuel Pepys

“My wife, coming up suddenly, did find me embracing the girl... I was at a wonderful loss upon it, and the girl also.”

“To the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon to the ‘Change, and then home to dinner.”

“This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ writ there.”

“Thence to the Exchequer, to certify my accounts, and then to the Swan, and there drank and eat a lobster.”

“And so to bed.”

“Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.”

“And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal.”

“I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.”

“Public business, it is well known, is nobody's business.”

“Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health.”

“But it is a strange thing to observe what a silly creature man is, and how he doth all things in a passion.”

“Up, and to my office, where busy all the morning.”

“I see it is impossible for the King to have things done as cheap as other men.”