Do you believe your heart to be, indeed, so hardened, that you can look without emotion on the suffering, to which you would condemn me?

There is something in the ardour and ingenousness of youth, which is particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world.

Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.

The refreshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descriptions, of those in health.

I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection. Yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that i always feel revived, as by a new convinction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and wanting these, I relapse into doubt and often into despondency.

There is some magic in wealth, which can thus make persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit themselves.

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