Circumstances form the character; but, like petrifying matters, they harden while they form.

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them ... so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory.

Children are what the mothers are.

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.

Those who speak against the great do not usually speak from morality, but from envy.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

We may receive so much light as not to see, and so much philosophy as to be worse than foolish.