God help us! it is a foolish little thing, this human life, at the best; and it is half ridiculous and half pitiful to see what importance we ascribe to it, and to its little ornaments and distinctions.

Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself.

The disease and its medicine are like two factions in a besieged town; they tear one another to pieces, but both unite against their common enemy, Nature.

The cheat ambition, eager to espouse dominion, courts it with a lying show, and shines in borrowed pomp to serve a turn.

Simplicity of manner is the last attainment. Men are very long afraid of being natural, from the dread of being taken for ordinary.

An obligation is something which constrains or induces us to act.

Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest of violence.