We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.

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.

To be rude is as good as being clever.

ingratitude is the necessary consequence of receiving favors of which we are ashamed.

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

Farewell's a bitter word to say.

... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification.