The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in Heaven before unfelt.

Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.

There are ceremonious bows that repel one like a cudgel.

Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.

A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.