I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.

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

We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.

I look upon paradoxes as the impotent efforts of men who, not having capacity to draw attention and celebrity from good sense, fly to eccentricities to make themselves noted.

Art is the filigrain of a little mind, and is twisted and involved and curled, but would reach farther if laid out in a straight line.

Letters to absence can a voice impart, And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart.

I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel - a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.