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

Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius develops itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others!

The lover and the physician are each popular from the same cause - we talk to them of nothing but ourselves.

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth; but it is never applied except when we wish to deceive ourselves - when if we cannot exclude the light, we would fain draw the curtain before it. The sneer springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be, that wishes to take refuge in doubt.

I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come.

We would liken music to Aladdin's lamp — worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch.

Hopes and regrets are the sweetest links of existence.