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.

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

The mind is never more highly gratified than in contemplating a natural landscape.

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.

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

Beauty loses its relish; the graces never.

Seldom do we talk of ourselves with success. If I condemn myself, more is believed than is expressed; if I praise myself, much less.