Merit is never so conspicuous as when coupled with an obscure origin, just as the moon never appears so lustrous as when it emerges from a cloud.

Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues.

Melancholy sees the worst of things...[rather than the best]

We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.

Passion looks not beyond the moment of its existence. Better, it says, the kisses of love to day, than the felicities of heaven afar off.

It is safer to quote what is written than what is spoken. What a man writes it is fair to presume he believes as a matter of general conviction, but it is not so with what he utters in the freedom of conversation. In that he may only express the feeling of the moment, and not his settled judgment, or matured opinion.

Troubles forereckoned are doubly suffered.