Everything is in constant flux on this earth. Nothing keeps the same unchanging shape, and our affections, being attached to things outside us, necessarily change and pass away as they do. Always out ahead of us or lagging behind, they recall a past which is gone or anticipate a future which may never come into being; there is nothing solid there for the heart to attach itself to. Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment.

Even knaves may be made good for something.

If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.

Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

This dog, which, although no beauty, was of an uncommon breed, I had made my friend and companion; and it certainly deserved the name better than the majority of those who had assumed it.

Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.