One's mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.

Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.

History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.

Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage.

He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.

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

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.