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.

When we find that we are not liked, we assert that we are not understood; when probably the dislike we have excited proceeds from our being too fully comprehended.

[His mind] was like a volcano, full of fire and wealth, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful, but ever threatening. It ran swift as the lightning from one subject to another, and occasionally burst forth in passionate throes of intellect, nearly allied to madness.

Men are capable of making great sacrifices, who are not willing to make the lesser ones, on which so much of the happiness of life depends. The great sacrifices are seldom called for, but the minor ones are in daily requisition; and the making them with cheerfulness and grace enhances their value.

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

Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.

Those who are formed to win general admiration are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.