How despicable is that humanity, which can be contented to pity, where it might assuage!

The world ridicules a passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence.

Ignorance of true pleasure more frequently than temptation to that which is false, leads to vice.

When the mind has once begun to yield to the weakness of superstition, trifles impress it with the force of conviction.

One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.

The passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!

When one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind, about one's fears.