The hate which we all bear with the most Christian patience is the hate of those who envy us.

Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.

Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.

Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.

There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.

Novels may teach us as wholesome a moral as the pulpit. There are "sermons in stones," in healthy books, and "good in everything.

Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is to watch the success of one's enemy; its wages to be sure of it.