Our first and last love is self-love.

Pleasure and pain spring not so much from the nature of things, as from our manner of considering them. Pleasure, especially, is never an invariable effect of particular circumstances.

Activity and sadness are incompatible.

The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards. Cheerfulness is the off-shoot of goodness.

Weakness ineffectually seeks to disguise itself,--like a drunken man trying to show how sober he is.

Luminous quotations, also, atone, by their interest, for the dulness of an inferior book, and add to the value of a superior work by the variety which they lend to its style and treatment.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.