People praise us behind our backs, but we hear them not; few before our faces, and who is not suspicious of the truth of such praise?

Good humor is the sunshine of the mind.

The higher the rank the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to.

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

Ere yet we yearn for what is out of our reach, we are still in the cradle. When wearied out with our yearnings, desire again falls asleep; we are on the death-bed.

Youth, with swift feet, walks onward in the way; the land of joy lies all before his eyes.

To the thinker, the most trifling external object often suggests ideas, which, like Homer's chain, extend, link after link, from earth to heaven.