Self-respecting people do not care to peep at their reflections in unexpected mirrors, or to see themselves as others see them.

Youth is the time for adventures of the body, but age for the triumphs of the mind.

Uncultivated minds are not full of wild flowers, like uncultivated fields. Villainous weeds grow in them and they are the haunt of toads.

People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.

A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent

When elderly invalids meet with fellow-victims of their own ailments, then at last real conversation begins, and life is delicious.

I might give my life for my friend, but he had better not ask me to do up a parcel.