A fiction which is designed to inculcate an object wholly alien to the imagination sins against the first law of art; and if a writer of fiction narrow his scope to particulars so positive as polemical controversy in matters ecclesiastical, political or moral, his work may or may not be an able treatise, but it must be a very poor novel.

To how many is the death of the beloved the parent of faith!

The same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains.

To be happy, you must learn to forget yourself.

Bright and illustrious illusions!

Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the arts or the graces weave for thee, O human nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence!

In the hour of strait and need, we measure men's stature not by the body, but the soul!