Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

If gratitude, when exerted towards another, naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man, it exalts the soul into rapture when it is employed on this great object of gratitude to the beneficent Being who has given us everything we already possess, and from whom we expect everything we yet hope for.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.