Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.

We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death.

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities we possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy.