Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

Love and joy are twins or born of each other.

Do not quarrel with the world too soon; for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them; if we are constantly with them, we despise them.

To-day kings, to-marrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing.

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.