I am free in performing an action if I could have done otherwise if I had chosen to.
The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.
Faith goes out through the window when beauty comes in at the door.
Now, in my opinion, a woman has no business with Power-Power admits no equal, and dismisses friendship for flattery. Besides, it keeps the men at a distance, and that is not always what we wish.
All moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects.
If I am asked ‘what is good?’ my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter.
I’ll tell thee what it says; it calls me villain, a treacherous husband, a cruel father, a false brother; one lost to nature and her charities; or to say all in one short word, it calls me – Gamester.
Beauty has wings, and too hastily flies, and love, unrewarded, soon sickens and dies.
Honesty needs no pains to set itself off.
I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
Can’t I another’s face commend, Or to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead louers, As if her merit lessen’d yours?
But from the hoop’s bewitching round, Her very shoe has power to wound.
Ay, rail at gaming – ’tis a rich topic, and affords noble declamation. Go, preach against it in the city – you’ll find a congregation in every tavern.
The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand.
A great artist is always before his time or behind it.