How happy is it for us, that the admiration of others should depend so much more on their ignorance than our perfection!

You deny that man is really so prejudiced as I suppose him; talk to him then of some foreign country, ask him what religion he is of.

Habit is the cement of society, the comfort of life, and, alas! The root of error.

Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.

Two men are equally free from the rage of ambition; are they therefore equal in merit? Perhaps not; one may be above ambition, the other below it.

Every character is in some respects uniform, and in others inconsistent; and it is only by the study both of the uniformity and inconsistency, and a comparison of them with each other, that the knowledge of man is acquired.

No fruit has a more precise marked period of maturity, than love; if neglected to be gathered at that time, it will certainly fall to the ground and die away.