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

Violent passions are formed in solitude. In the busy world no object has time to make a deep impression.

Death, whether it regards ourselves or others, appears less terrible in war than at home. The cries of women and children, friends in anguish, a dark room, dim tapers, priests and physicians, are what affect us the most on the death-bed. Behold us already more than half dead and buried.

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.

Great wants proceed from great wealth; but they are undutiful children, for they sink wealth down to poverty.

An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his demands will oblige you to stop short at last, after he has become a little headstrong.

Men are guided less by conscience than by glory; and yet the shortest way to glory is to be guided by conscience.