First loves are not necessarily more foolish than others; but the chances are certainly against them. Proximity of time or place, a variety of accidental circumstances more than the essential merits of the object, often produce what is called first love.

Our pleasures in literature do not, I think, decline with age; last 1st of January was my eighty-second birthday, and I think that I had as much enjoyment from books as I ever had in my life.

An orator is the worse person to tell a plain fact.

Justice satisfies everybody.

Let the sexes mutually forgive each other their follies; or, what is much better, let them combine their talents for their general advantage.

Now flattery can never do good; twice cursed in the giving and the receiving, it ought to be.

Health can make money, but money cannot make health.