The graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous.

Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose.

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.

... wealth and female softness equally tend to debase mankind!

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.

How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proven unkind. I have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind.

For years I have endeavored to calm an impetuous tide -- laboring to make my feelings take an orderly course -- it was striving against the stream.