Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.

General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.

Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.

We must be doing something to be happy.

Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for - they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?