Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.

Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.

The various opinions of philosophers have scattered through the world as many plagues of the mind as Pandora's box did those of the body; only with this difference, that they have not left hope at the bottom.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.

Vanity is a natural object of temptation to a woman.