We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men aboutus are dupes. But life is a sincerity.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds: Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which yet they never enter, and with their hand on the doorlatch they die outside.

Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes; what a satire this is on government.

A weed is a plant whose virtue is not yet known.

In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion.

Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.