Nothing can work damage to me except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me and never am a real sufferer except by my own fault.

The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in... the part he plays.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

We cannot forgive another for not being ourselves.

For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.

We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid hallucinations, and especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, and all are tripped up first or last. But the mighty mother, who had been so sly with us, as if she felt she owed us some indemnity, insinuates into the Pandora box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some great joys.