“Oh, treacherous night thou lendest thy ready veil to every treason, and teeming mischief’s beneath thy shade.”

Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.

Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing virtue manly way; it is nature’s mark to know an honest heart by.

O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine, Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor.

Shun fear, it is the ague of the soul! a passion man created for himself–for sure that cramp of nature could not dwell in the warm realms of glory.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

Art, however innocent, looks like deceiving.

The man with but one idea in his head is sure to exaggerate that to top-heaviness, and thus he loses his equilibrium.

First, then, a woman will, or won’t, – depend on’t; If she will do’t, she will; and there’s an end on’t. But, if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is, Fear is affront: and jealousy injustice.

Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish.

Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of another’s sorrow.

Law that shocks equity is reason’s murderer.

Order, thou eye of action.

Birth is a shadow. Courage, self-sustained, outlords succession’s phlegm, and needs no ancestors.

Servile doubt argues an impotence of mind, that says we fear because we dare not meet misfortunes.

There is no merit where there is no trial; and till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, and faith for falsehood.

She who means no mischief does it all.

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

Religion hides many mischiefs from suspicion.

I started a grease fire at McDonald’s – threw a match in the cook’s hair.

The glint of mischief in your eyes is the flint in my matchstick. Striking; always this close to igniting.

Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property… Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.

You have your look. That lethal fusion of mischief and innocence, the one that maddens statues with lust.

A peace-mingling falsehood is preferable to a mischief-stirring truth.