Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.

To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.

Well of all things in the world, I don't suppose anything can be so dreadful as a public wedding--my stars!--I should never be able to support it!

an old woman ... is a person who has no sense of decency; if once she takes to living, the devil himself can't get rid of her.

I'd rather be done any thing to than laughed at, for, to my mind, it's one or other the disagreeablest thing in the world.

I am ashamed of confessing that I have nothing to confess.

While all the pomp and circumstance of war animated others, it only saddened me; and all of past reflection, all of future dread, made the whole grandeur of the martial scene, and all the delusive seduction of martial music, fill my eyes frequently with tears.