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

It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.

Fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism ... tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute.

It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying on itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things.

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.