“When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?”

I love everything that’s old, – old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, ‘Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

They say women and music should never be dated.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

What is she like? I was told – she is a melancholy soul.

Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.

I’m missing some people, you know, and this is not nostalgia. I miss them. This is melancholy.

Gaiety is forgetfulness of the self, melancholy is memory of the self: in that state the soul feels all the power of its roots, nothing distracts it from its profound homeland and the look that it casts upon the outer world is gently dismayed.

There is a sense of melancholy attached to seeing images of yourself from a different era, especially when you see a picture.

I hope you find grace in the spaces in between your racing thoughts and melancholy – be kind to your beautiful mind.

Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.