“The greatest part of mankind labor under one delirium or another; and Don Quixote differed from the rest, not in madness, but the species of it. The covetous, the prodigal, the superstitious, the libertine, and the coffee-house politician, are all Quixotes in their several ways.”

A man may go to heaven with half the pains it cost him to purchase hell.

No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.

We must eat to live, and not live to eat.

Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate.

A wonder lasts but nine days, and then the puppy’s eyes are open.

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by tenderness of the best hearts.

The life of a coquette is one constant lie; and the only rule by which you can form any correct judgment of them is that they are never what they seem.

The constant desire of pleasing which is the peculiar quality of some, may be called the happiest of all desires in this that it rarely fails of attaining its end when not disgraced by affectation.

When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

There’s one fool at least in every married couple.

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.

Enough is equal to a feast.

There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.

There cannot be a move glorious object in creation than a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to His creatures.

Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

Good-humor will even go so far as often to supply the lack of wit.

For my part, I would say that the male sperm and seeds of plants have been penetrated so far that there is nothing further to discover in this great secret, but I could err in my opinion.

The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!

Nature is the greatest teacher and I learn from her best when others are asleep. In the still dark hours before sunrise God tells me of the plans I am to fulfill.

The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes; a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips though they cannot speak.

My greatest act of self love was knowing when to walk away.

For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door.

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary.

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.