He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

All beauties are to be honored, but only one embraced.

Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.

A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.

We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.

A fanatical imagination cannot regard God as just unless he is represented as infinitely cruel.

Man is a fighting animal; his thoughts are his banners, and it is a failure of nerve in him if they are only thoughts.