The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.

The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.

Water and oil, simply considered, are capable of giving some pleasure to the taste. Water, when simple, is insipid, inodorous, colorless, and smooth; it is found, when not cold, to be a great resolver of spasms, and lubricator of the fibres; this power it probably owes to its smoothness.

Woman is not made to be the admiration of everybody , but the happiness of one.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins justice ends?

There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity.