Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please.

Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.

The jests of the rich are ever successful.

The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.

There is yet a silent agony in which the mind appears to disdain all external help, and broods over its distresses with gloomy reserve. This is the most dangerous state of mind; accidents or friendships may lessen the louder kinds of grief, but all remedies for this must be had from within, and there despair too often finds the most deadly enemy.

Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.

True generosity is a duty as indispensably necessary as those imposed on us by law.