. . . this life is a perpetual chequer-work of good and evil, pleasure and pain. When in possession of what we desire, we are only so much the nearer losing it; and when at a distance from it, we live in expectation of enjoying it again.

Racine will pass away like the taste for coffee.

Fortune is always on the side of the largest battalions.

Religious people spend so much time with their confessors because they like to talk about themselves.

matrimony is a very dangerous disorder; I had rather drink.

It is the fine rain that soaks us through.

There is no real evil in life, except great pain; all the rest is imaginary, and depends on the light in which we view things