Extremes are vicious, and proceed from men; compensation is just, and proceeds from God.

Too great carelessness, equally with excess in dress, multiplies the wrinkles of old age, and makes its decay still more conspicuous.

We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

There is what is called the highway to posts and honor, and there is a cross and by way, which is much the shortest.

Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.