I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge.

Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. If I were pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that my only reply could be: Because it was he, because it was I.

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.