Praise, of all things, is the most powerful excitement to commendable actions, and animates us in our enterprises.

If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.

Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.

A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.

We wish to constitute all the happiness, or, if that cannot be, the misery of the one we love.