You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger, security for happiness.
Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them, is not of philosophy, but what is much better, of ignorance.
You must be the best judge of your own happiness.
What are men to rocks and mountains?
There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.
There are secrets in all families.
There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it.
The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!
Resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation.
Nothing is more deceitful, than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.
Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body.
