It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.

Sneering springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be that wishes to take refuge in doubt.

How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion!

The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.

The rich know not how hard it is to be of needful rest and needful food debarred.

Curiosity is its own suicide.

words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element - the one by which all the others are swayed.