We listen to those whom we know to be of the same opinion as ourselves, and we call them wise for being of it; but we avoid such as differ from us.

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.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.

The happiest of pillows is not that which love first presses! it is that which death has frowned on and passed over.

Principles do not mainly influence even the principled; we talk on principle, but we act on interest.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.