Banter is often a proof of want of intelligence.
For a woman to be at once a coquette and a bigot is more than the humblest of husbands can bear; she should mercifully choose between the two.
In art them is a point of perfection, as of goodness or maturity in nature; he who is able to perceive it, and who loves it, has perfect taste; he who does not feel it, or loves on this side or that, has an imperfect taste.
A long disease seems to be a halting place between life and death, that death itself may be a comfort to those who die and to those who are left behind.
The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself.
Love receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it.
Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatical.
It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and sanctimonious as well; she should select only one of those qualities.
Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.
A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.
It is difficult for a proud man ever to forgive a person who has found him at fault, and who has good grounds for complaining of him; his pride is not assuaged till he has regained the advantages he lost and put the other person in the wrong.
How many men are like trees, already strong and full grown, which are transplanted into some gardens, to the astonishment of those people who behold them in these fine spots, where they never saw them grow, and who neither know their beginning nor their progress!
The highest reach of a news-writer is an empty Reasoning on Policy, and vain Conjectures on the public Management.
The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes.
The greatest part of mankind employ their first years to make their last miserable.
A modest man never talks of himself.
It is not so easy to obtain a reputation by a perfect work as to enhance the value of an indifferent one by a reputation already acquired.
All the world says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb; but no one dares to say so to his face, and he dies without knowing it.
He who only writes to suit the taste of the age, considers himself more than his writings. We should always aim at perfection, and then posterity will do us that justice which sometimes our contemporaries refuse us.
Whatever is certain in death is slightly alleviated by what is not so infallible; the time when it shall happen is undefined, but it is more or less connected with the infinite, and what we call eternity.