In what we really understand, we reason but little.

Sincerity has to do with the connexion between our words and thoughts, and not between our beliefs and actions.

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.

There is a quiet repose and steadiness about the happiness of age, if the life has been well spent. Its feebleness is not painful. The nervous system has lost its acuteness. But, in mature years we feel that a burn, a scald, a cut, is more tolerable than it was in the sensitive period of youth.

Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority; natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

The truth is, we pamper little griefs into great ones, and bear great ones as well as we can.