The passions seldom give good advice but to the interested and mercenary. Resentment generally suggests bad measures. Second thoughts and good nature will rarely, very rarely, approve the first hints of anger.

Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!

Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.

Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil.

It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

Serendipity... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.