There are many women who have never intrigued, and many men who have never gamed; but those who have done either but once are very extraordinary animals.

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

It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds and inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed nor calls out his powers if pastured out with the common herd, that are destined for the collar and the yoke.

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

What is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much, and see so little; whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed; that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession.