it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

though fortune's wheel is generally on the turn, sometimes when it gets into the mud, it sticks there.

Assuredly, meeting after absence, is one of - ah, no! - it is life's most delicious feeling.

One of the greatest of all mental pleasures is to have our thoughts often divined: ever entered into with sympathy.

I cannot love evergreens - they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind - sympathy. ... I will have no evergreens in my garden; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favorite tree shall drop together - no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay.

Nothing more strongly marks the insufficiency of luxuries than the ease with which people grow accustomed to them; they are rather known by their want than by their presence. The word 'blasé' has been coined expressly for the use of the upper classes.

To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage.