That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman.

Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact.

Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands.