Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason.

Ambition does not see the earth she treads on: The rock and the herbage are of one substance to her.

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.

Contentment is better than divinations or visions.

No friendship is so cordial or so delicious as that of girl for girl; no hatred so intense and immovable as that of woman for woman.