We are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous, and might be even happier; but, as a matter of taste, we choose to stop short at this point.

Generosity is the flower of justice.

In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your grieves may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.

What is the voice of song when the world lacks the ear of taste?

Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible.

I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!

There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.