Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room.

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom.

When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.

Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.

It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.