If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has.

That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument.

The greatest miracle that the Almighty could perform would be to make a bad man happy, even in heaven; he must unparadise that blessed place to accomplish it. In its primary signification, all vice--that is, all excess--brings its own punishment even here.

Love may exist without jealousy, although this is rare: but jealousy may exist without love, and this is common; for jealousy can feed on that which is bitter no less than on that which is sweet, and is sustained by pride as often as by affection.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

The French revolution was a .eune invented and constructed for the purpose of manufacturing liberty; but it had neither lever cogs, nor adjusting powers, and the consequences were that it worked so rapidly that it destroyed its own inventors, and set itself on fire.