Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.

The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals.

Those who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this we live in have at least one thing to plead in defense of their idolatry--the power of their idol. It is true that, like other idols, it can neither move, see, hear, feel, nor understand; but, unlike other idols, it has often communicated all these powers to those who had them not, and annihilated them in those who had. This idol can boast of two peculiarities; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.

He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.

The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.

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