A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.

To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.

Lying is the strongest acknowledgement of the force of truth.

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.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.

Habit is necessary to give power.