What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is.

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.

They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.

Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.

Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before.