Such is the power of imagination, that even a chimerical pleasure in expectation affects us more than a solid pleasure in possession.

As nice as we are in love, we forgive more faults in that than in friendship.

Genius is allied to a warm and inflammable constitution; delicacy of taste, to calmness and sedateness. Hence it is common to find genius in one who is a prey to every passion.

No man ever did a designed injury to another, but at the same time he did a greater to himself.

We part more easily with what we possess, than with our expectations of what we wish for; because expectation always goes beyond enjoyment.

An agreeable figure and winning manner, which inspire affection without love, are always new. Beauty loses its relish, the graces never, after the longest acquaintance, they are no less agreeable than at first.

To a zealot every one of his own sect is a saint, while the most upright of a different sect are to him children of perdition.