We fluctuate long between love and hatred before we can arrive at tranquillity.

it is not the deed but the intention that makes the crime.

Don't assume you're always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that 'the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.

Riches and power are but gifts of blind fate, whereas goodness is the result of one's own merits.

the higher the step of advancement, the heavier is the fall.

If the portraits of our absent friends are pleasant to us, which renew our memory of them and relieve our regret for their absence by a false and empty consolation, how much more pleasant are letters which bring us the written characters of the absent friend.

The name of mistress instead of wife would be dearer and more honourable for me, only love given freely, rather than the constriction of the marriage tie, is of significance to an ideal relationship.