a straight line is the shortest possible line between any two points - an axiom equally true in morals as in mathematics.

How success changes the opinion of men!

[On collectors of quotations:] How far our literature may in future suffer from these blighting swarms, will best be conceived by a glance at what they have already withered and blasted of the favourite productions of our most popular poets.

When one illusion vanishes, another shall appear, and, still leading me forward towards an horizon that retreats as I advance, the happy prospect of futurity shall vanish only with my existence.

wit is often its own worst enemy.

If young women were not deceived into a belief that affectation pleases, they would scarcely trouble themselves to practise it so much.

Hope can produce the finest and most permanent springs of action.