Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?

Come forward, some great marshal, and organize equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks

Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.

I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own.

A good woman is the loveliest flower that blooms under heaven; and we look with love and wonder upon its silent grace, its pure fragrance, its delicate bloom of beauty.

Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.

The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.