... I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see, for disappointment never fails to ensue.

Imagination, which is the Eldorado of the poet and of the novel-writer, often proves the most pernicious gift to the individuals who compose the talkers instead of the writers in society.

Men who would persecute others for religious opinions, prove the errors of their own.

Pleasure is like a cordial - a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.

The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges.

People seem to lose all respect for the past; events succeed each other with such velocity that the most remarkable one of a few years gone by, is no more remembered than if centuries had closed over it.

Thoughts come maimed and plucked of plumage from the lips, which, from the pea, in the silence of your own leisure and study, would be born with far more beauty.