The mind's only perfect vassal.

The French have a significant saying, that a woman who buys her complexion will sell it.

Literature is so common a luxury that the age has grown fastidious.

To impress others we must be earnest; to amuse them, it is only necessary to be kindly and fanciful.

Had we a privilege of calling up by the power of memory only such passages as were pleasing, unmixed with such as were disagreeable, we might then excite at pleasure an ideal happiness, perhaps more poignant than actual sensation.

Whatever is genuine in social relations endures, despite of time, error, absence, and destiny; and that which has no inherent vitality had better die at once. A great poet has truly declared that constancy is no virtue, but a fact.

There is a policy in manner. I have heard one, not inexperienced in the pursuit of fame, give it his earnest support, as being the surest passport to absolute and brilliant success.