Six, or at most seven, hours' sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you or anybody else can want; more is only laziness and dozing, and is, I am persuaded, both unwholesome and stupefying.

Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.

Study the heart and the mind of man, and begin with your own. Meditation and reflection must lay the foundation of that knowledge, but experience and practice must, and alone can, complete it.

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.

You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.