[I have] been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.

The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention.

Injuries come only from the heart.

Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest,--and has wit in it, and instruction too,--if we can but find it out.

So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,--both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.

Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.