Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before.

To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.

No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.

Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.

As a general rule, those who are dissatisfied with themselves will seek to go out of themselves into an ideal world. Persons in strong health and spirits, who take plenty of air and exercise, who are "in favor with, their stars," and have a thorough relish of the good things of this life, seldom devote themselves in despair to religion or the muses. Sedentary, nervous, hypochondriacal people, on the contrary, are forced, for want of an appetite for the real and substantial, to look out for a more airy food and speculative comforts.

Liberty is the only true riches: of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves.