We value the devotedness of friendship rather as an oblation to vanity than as a free interchange of hearts; an endearing contract of sympathy, mutual forbearance, and respect!

The doubts of love are never to be wholly overcome; they grow with its various anxieties, timidities, and tenderness, and are the very fruits of the reverence in which the admired object is beheld.

The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality, which some temptation may not overtop or undermine, and destroy.

In the career of female fame, there are few prizes to tie obtained which can vie with the obscure state of a beloved wife or a happy mother.

The flatterer easily insinuates himself into the closet, while honest merit stands shivering in the hall or antechamber.

The perfection of outward loveliness is the soul shining through its crystalline covering.

In his fairy dreams of war [Thaddeus] always made conquest the sure end of his battles.