What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

We like to be deceived.

The secrets of nature are concealed; her agency is perpetual, but we do not always discover its effects; time reveals them from age to age; and although she is always the same in herself, she is not always equally well known.

All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer.

The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.