Even in the midst of compassion we feel within I know not what tart sweet titillation of malicious pleasure in seeing others suffer; children have the same feeling.

There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.

We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say; we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us.

There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally.

I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.

There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury...but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.