We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.

the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

Youth has a quickness of apprehension, which it is very apt to mistake for an acuteness of penetration.

No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue; Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest Save he who courts the flattery.

we live in an age which must be amused, though genius, feeling, trust, and principle be the sacrifice.

If a young lady has that discretion and modesty without which all knowledge is little worth, she will never make an ostentatious parade of it, because she will rather be intent on acquiring more than on displaying what she has.

To hint at a fault does more mischief than speaking out; for whatever is left for the imagination to finish will not fail to be overdone.