Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.

As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles; and the nearer we approach to the grand luminary the court, the more frigidity and apathy shall we experience.

It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.

When all moves equally (says Pascal), nothing seems to move as in a vessel under sail; and when all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so. He that stops first, views as from a fixed point the horrible extravagance that transports the rest.

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom; he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

Men of strong minds and who think for themselves, should not be discouraged on finding occasionally that some of their best ideas have been anticipated by former writers; they will neither anathematize others nor despair themselves. They will rather go on discovering things before discovered, until they are rewarded with a land hitherto unknown, an empire indisputably their own, both right of conquest and of discovery.

Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed, at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.