Men are valued, not for what they are, but for what they seem to be.

Fiction may be said to be the caricature of history.

He who esteems trifles for themselves is a trifler; he who esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher.

Jewelry and profuse ornaments are unmistakable evidences of vulgarity.

Westward, beyond the still pleasant, but, even then, no longer solitary, hamlet of Charing, a broad space, broken here and there by scattered houses and venerable pollards, in the early spring of 1467, presented the rural scene for the sports and pastimes of the inhabitants of Westminister and London.

One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.

In families well ordered, there is always one firm, sweet temper, which controls without seeming to dictate. The Greeks represented Persuasion as crowned.