Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood.

We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the other.

The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.