There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

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

An Englishman fears contempt more than death.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po.