Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food--and a spaniel, that prefers even punishment from one hand to caresses from another. But it is in love as in war, we are often more indebted for our success to the weakness of the defence than to the energy of the attack; for mere idleness has ruined more women than passion; vanity more than idleness, and credulity more than either.

The science of legislation is like that of medicine in one respect: that it is far more easy to point out what will do harm than what will do good.

Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never.

Time ... advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent.

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.