Happy the land where the writers are sad, the merchants satisfied, the rich melancholic, and the populace content.

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

Life, for me, is living among my friends.

It is not enough to forgive; one must forget.

Whatever efforts one may make, one must revert to the realization that religion is the real basis of morality; religion is the real and perceptible purpose within us, which alone, can turn aside our attention from things. ... The science of morality can no more teach human beings to be honest, in all the magnificence of this word, than geometry can teach one how to draw.

[The Germans] so easily confuse obstinacy with energy, and rudeness with firmness.

Nature, who permits no two leaves to be exactly alike, has given a still greater diversity to human minds. Imitation, then, is a double murder; for it deprives both copy and original of their primitive existence.