Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

In love we do not think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love.

The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation.

Hope is the best possession.

We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us.

Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.

What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is.