Elegance is something more than ease; it is more than a freedom from awkwardness or restraint. It implies, I conceive, a precision, a polish, a sparkling, spirited yet delicate.

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.

Abuse is an indirect species of homage.

It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.

[Science is] the desire to know causes.

The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.