Next to happiness, perhaps enmity is the most healthful stimulant of the human mind.

I think reading a novel is almost next best to having something to do.

Imagination is the first faculty wanting in those that do harm to their kind.

Even in misery we love to be foremost, to have the bitter in our cup acknowledged as more bitter than that of others.

It is often easier to justify one's self to others than to respond to the secret doubts that arise in one's own bosom.

Laughing is not the first expression of joy. ... A person laughs in idleness, for fun, not for joy. Joy has nothing, nothing but the old way of tears.

What happiness is there which is not purchased with more or less of pain?