No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.

The happiness of building lasted but a little while, for though I love to spend, I hate to be cheated; and I soon found, that to build is to be robbed.

There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man.

Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence.

It is our first duty to serve society, and after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls.

Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.