The difference between those whom the world esteems as good and those whom it condemns as bad, is in many cases little else than that the former have been better sheltered from temptation.

The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.

A youth's love is the more passionate; virgin love is the more idolatrous.

Many men spend their lives in gazing at their own shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof.

Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week.

Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.

We like slipping, but not falling; our real anxiety is to be tempted enough.