Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow, and the deepest sorrow without any tears.

Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.

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.

Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal.

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.

Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.