When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.

Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason.

The highest price we can pay for anything; is to ask it.

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