Gaiety pleases more when we are assured that it does not cover carelessness.

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.

The pursuit of politics is religion, morality, and poetry all in one.

If it were not for respect for human opinions, I would not open my window to see the Bay of Naples for the first time, whilst I would go five hundred leagues to talk with a man of genius whom I had not seen.

Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive.

There is no second country for an Englishman, except a ship and the sea.

Society develops wit, but its contemplation alone forms genius.