To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.

I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.

Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

She attracted him more than he liked.

I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.