The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.

Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.

Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.

We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?

A good marriage (if any there be) refuses the conditions of love and endeavors to present those of amity.

I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.