Desultory Thoughts and Reflections

Music often awakens long sleeping echoes in the soul; and, though never heard before, seems familiar to the ear, as some voice, loved in childhood, remembered in a dream.

Some minds may be said to resemble musical instruments: they possess powers, and if judiciously touched, give forth sweet sounds.

Ninon de L’Enclos observes, that “if a man gives a woman wealth, it is only a proof of his generosity; but that if he gives her his time, it is a proof of his love.” This, however, 7cannot be considered as a conclusive proof, for, in giving their time, many men bestow that which is of no value to themselves or others.

Love and enthusiasm are always ridiculous, when not reciprocated by their objects.

Spontaneously, we render the path of life a weary one, and plant all the thorns that obstruct it: while the few stray flowers that cheer us, arise in some extraneous and contingent agency.

The minds of the young resemble new wine in a state of fermentation and effervescence; but the minds of the mature resemble old wine, which has lost its fiery particles, and retains only its strength and raciness.

As storm following storm, and wave succeeding wave, give additional hardness to the shell that encloses the pearl, so do the storms and waves of life add force to the character of man.

Precocious wisdom is not desirable for youth, lest, like the rash blossom which ventures forth too early, it should be nipped ere it has strength to resist adversity.

By relying on our own resources, we acquire mental strength; but, when we lean on 9others for support, we are like an invalid, who, having accustomed himself to a crutch, finds it difficult to walk without one.

Contemplation displays to us the past events of our lives, which, during their occurrence, we saw not; as a calm clear day shows us the rocks and wrecks of the sea, which we discovered not while tossed on the turbulent surface of the waters.

Philosophy was a boon bestowed by Reason to console mankind for the inevitable misfortunes of life, but being found insufficient for the task, she granted the blessing of Religion, a younger, a more gentle, and infallible consoler.

A substitute for goodness of heart.

Presentiments are the heart’s prophecies; for the heart is a sibyl deeply skilled in all the mysteries of her own realm.

Youth resembles a Claude Lorraine glass, which imparts to all objects its own beautiful tints; but age is like a magnifying lens, which leaves no defect unseen.

Confidences are more frequently reposed in persons through a want of discretion, than 11from excess of friendship, and are oftener betrayed through incontinency of speech than from motives of treachery.

The common herd of mankind mistake anarchy for liberty, ostentation for generosity, passion for love, and vanity for pride; yet how widely different are they all!

Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrame.

A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is generally influenced by his head.

Life would be as insupportable without the prospect of death, as it would be without sleep.

It is in maturity, when the passions are calmed, and Reason exerts her influence, that the attachments we form possess the most stability. We expect less, and pardon more. The disappointments we have experienced 13teach us to value what we have attained, even while regretting what we have lost.

The poetry of our lives is, like our religion, kept apart from our every-day thoughts; neither influence us as they ought. We should be wiser and happier, if, instead of secluding them in some secret shrine in our hearts, we suffered their humanising qualities to temper our habitual words and actions.

Honour is the peculiar and essential virtue of men, and chastity that of women; both are lost, if these qualities are impeached.

Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection; like the Spartans, who punished the discovery of theft, and not the crime.

The selfish man believes that by closing his heart against his fellows, and centering in self every thought and feeling, he escapes much suffering. But his egotistical calculations are invariably defeated; for his contracted sympathies being all directed to one focus, he so aggravates the ills he endures, that he expends on self alone more painful pity than the most enthusiastic philanthropist devotes to mankind.

Each illusion that dies gives birth to a posthumous one, which we believe to be less perishable than its predecessor, until we see it similarly fade and expire.

In solitude we retain our own faults; but in society we superadd those of others.

Some people seem to consider the severity of their censures on the errors of others as an atonement for their own.

We injure ourselves more than our enemies, by indulging hatred towards them.

We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers. A considerable distinction exists between the amusing and the entertaining man: we laugh with one, but reflect with the other.

Courage defends the honour of man,—modesty guards that of woman.

People who talk of themselves, when you are thinking only of yourself.

Pleasure is like a cordial—a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.

Ideas are the seeds of thought, but they do not produce flowers unless the soil where they are sown is fertile.

The aristocracy are prone to ridicule the elevation of men of the middle class to high official situations, not reflecting that it is easier to transmute men of talents into gentlemen than it is to convert mere gentlemen into men of talents.

“J’écrirais assez bien si je savais penser,” was the confession of a French writer; one which might with truth be repeated by the 19greater part of modern authors, in whose works we find a superfluity of words, and a paucity of ideas. It is as though they wrote to avoid thought, instead of revealing and engendering it. Their works resemble certain trees, on which is found an abundance of leaves, but little fruit.

Those who are formed to win general admiration, are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.

Virtue, like a dowerless beauty, has more admirers than followers.

The spirit in which we receive trials either increases or diminishes their bitterness: fortitude and resignation disarm them of their sharpest darts; while anger and vindictiveness only augment their poignancy.

A man without principles is like a ship without a compass.

Mendaciloquens respects truth so much, that he seldom approaches it. Nay, you are wrong, for he is known to take great liberties with it.

Knowledge should be acquired gradually, and by study; for the superficial knowledge which is the result of the promiscuous and unregulated adoption of the discoveries of others, affects the mind, as the sudden removal of a person with weak eyes from a darkened room into a blaze of light, does the sight,—it overpowers and confuses.

The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for errors; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.

So inherent is ingratitude in man, that it is chiefly in affliction that he lifts his soul to his Creator; in joy and prosperity, he is prone to forget Him.

Those can most easily dispense with society who are the most calculated to adorn it; they only are dependent on it who possess no mental resources; for though they bring nothing to the general mart, like beggars, they are too poor to stay at home.

Many people mistake audacity for courage, yet they are dissimilar. Catiline was audacious, and Cæsar courageous.

As darkness encourages the growth of reptiles, so, in an inverse manner, do the creatures of superstition promote the growth of darkness.

Those who suffer their happiness to depend on the futile pleasures of society, instead of the resources of their own minds, resemble birds, who, with the power of soaring into the pure regions of the sky, descend, and loiter amid the dust of the earth, at the risk of being snared or destroyed by every vagrant urchin.

The heart is often made answerable for the follies of the imagination.

Truth and physic, two unpalatable things, never well received, though administered with a good intention.

Cunning is a substitute for wisdom, adopted by the weak of intellect, as vanity is for pride.

Sceptics, like dolphins, change when dying.

Scandal is the offspring of envy and malice—nursed by society, and cultivated by disappointment.

The selfish man may be compared to those antediluvian forests in the wilds of America which are nourished by their own dead leaves; in like manner does he feed on those feelings which ought to be devoted to the promotion of the general good.

Superstition is but the fear of belief: religion is the confidence.

In society we learn to know others, but in solitude we acquire a knowledge of self.

We are so little formed for happiness, that, if the present offers nothing to mar it, we look back to the past, or forward to the future, for some subject of chagrin.

There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world.

Darus was a matter-of-fact man,—a moral iconoclast, who waged war against every image the fancy presented.

Patience is a plant of slow growth, but it bears precious fruit, and is the only palliation in affliction.

Vice is sometimes more courageous than virtue, because it has less to lose.

We more frequently pardon injuries from forgetfulness of them than from generosity; and many enemies are reconciled more through weakness of memory than goodness of heart.

It is when we most suffer that we most believe the existence of that Power which can wound or heal.

If we examined our own faults attentively, we should have less time to detect, and more inclination to pardon, those of others.

The affections of some hearts resemble the sacred Indian tree, whose pendant branches make themselves a root and a tie to the earth.

The rich suffer from want of appetite, the poor from excess.

Great injuries pardoned preclude the enjoyment of happiness between the pardoner 31and pardoned; for the one is vested with a superiority that wounds the self-love of the other, who, though he may admire the generosity of him who forgives, can love him no more.

People use in society a set of commonplace subjects and thoughts, which they exchange, as they expend the small coin with which they have provided their purses for the day; reserving deep feeling, and elevated sentiments, for home consumption, as they reserve their wealth for themselves, rather than for their friends.

We are more prone to murmur at the punishment of our faults than to lament them.

Forgiveness is a salve for the wounds inflicted by unkindness; while rancour but serves to keep them unhealed.

The society of polished men, like smooth, even roads, renders the journey of life more easy and agreeable, but that of unpolished men, like rough roads, makes all its ruts and inequalities painfully felt.

Anger banishes reflection, but its consequences recall it.

“Be prosperous and happy, never require our services, and we will remain your friends.” This is not what society says, but it is the principle on which it acts.

Life is to the unhappy as a prison, from whose gloom they cannot escape: while to the happy, it resembles a vast palace filled with all that can delight. The prison may be rendered endurable by resignation; but the palace loses some of its bright colouring 34and gilding every day, until nought but faded remnants of its pristine beauty remain.

One of the best gifts of Providence is the veil that conceals futurity.

No dust affects the eyes so much as gold dust.

False wit, like false money, only passes current with those who have no means of comparison.

Such is the tergiversation in politics at present, that politicians should say with regard to them, what Voltaire said of systems: “Il faut toujours se reserver le droit de rire le lendemain de ses idées de la veille.”

Love often re-illumes his extinguished flame in the torch of jealousy.

Our luxuries and pleasures are the chains that civilization throws around us to attach us to earth. The coarse-minded submit to wear them, forgetting that man was formed for nobler ends, but the elevated and refined cast them off, and aspire to a purer existence.

Humboldt notices that the streams in America run languidly in the night, and await the rising of the sun to quicken their flight. Love is to the heart what the sun is 36to the American streams—it moves languidly in its absence.

There are no memories so short as those of the parvenu, and the ungrateful man; the first forgets himself, and the second his friends.

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many.

One of the most marked characteristics of our day is a reckless neglect of principles, and a rigid adherence to their semblance.

Society rarely pardons those who have discovered the emptiness of its pleasures, and who can live independent of it and them.

We are never so jealous of the respect of others as when we have forfeited our own.

Satire often proceeds less from ill-nature than from the desire of displaying wit.

To praise the style of an author more than his thoughts, is like commending a woman for her dress more than for her person. Style, like dress, should be appropriate, and not detract attention from what it was meant to adorn.

Rough men have all their seams on the outside; and they rub against and incommode those who come in contact with them.

We are more prone to persecute others for their faith than to make sacrifices to prove our own.

Reason dissipates the illusions of life, but does not console us for their departure.

Sorrow is to youth what experience is to maturity.

Destiny is a phantom of our own creation, like the monsters children first imagine, and then fear.

Socrates termed philosophy the preparation for death; but should it not rather be styled the patient endurance of life?

It was said of ——, that his conversation was a tissue of bon mots: “Yes,” said ——, “but remember, it has nothing but bon mots, and though a few spangles may ornament a dress, a garment wholly covered with them is fatiguing to the eye.”

Kings never hear the voice of truth until they are dethroned; nor beauties, until they have abdicated their charms.

It is strange that when youth gives us the prospect of a long life, we seldom think of rationally providing for its enjoyment; but when the term of it has been abridged by the flight of its best years, we become anxious to secure the comforts of the brief portion that remains to us.

Poets, it has been said, form the aristocracy of intelligence; they are also the chemists of sentiment, who analyse and purify it.

Sober-minded people prefer enduring the evils of a despotism which they know, to risking those of a subversion on whose consequences they cannot calculate. Despotism pursues her course orderly and systematically, while Sedition hurries along, sweeping away with much that is bad still more that is estimable.

Cunning is the poor substitute for wisdom which weak minds adopt; but it is like the counterfeit which the forger strives to pass for the pure coin.

Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and acquired politeness. The first consists in a willing abnegation of self; the second, in a compelled recollection of others.

Mountains appear more lofty, the nearer they are approached; but great men, to retain their altitude, must only be viewed from a distance.

The wheel of fortune being guided by a blind goddess, often runs into deep ruts, and thus casts up what is impure.

Men of genius, who hold out lights to mankind, are used by them as are the Moccoli bearers at the Roman carnival by the populace; each of whom strives first to illume his torch in theirs, and then to extinguish it.

Our friends always wish us to be something which we are not; it is only our enemies that wish us to remain as we are.

Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart.

We are judged not by the virtues we possess, but by the indications of them which we assume. Like the style adopted for epistolary usage, in which we sign ourselves the obedient servants of persons we have no value for, so the semblance of virtue imposes on many, and satisfies all.

It is usually the most conceited people who take offence at the affectation of others.

Friends, like wine, require to be kept before use.

Gratitude is a prospective, rather than a retrospective virtue.

We seldom attain virtue until we have been purified by affliction—as only martyrs become saints.

As the pearl, which is the object of universal admiration, is produced by the disease of the oyster, so do many of the most illustrious actions originate in that mental disease,—an overweening ambition.

Men of genius may be said to reside in an illuminated and unapproachable palace of crystal, which, while it displays their brightness, reveals also certain small blemishes, which are rendered disproportionally conspicuous 48by the contrast of light; while ordinary mortals dwell in opaque residences, in which no ray discloses the grave faults of mediocrity.

We betray a profound knowledge of the world, by withdrawing from it when misfortune assails us.

A weak man will sustain afflictions that destroy a strong one, as the willow which yields its pliant branches to the blast escapes the destruction of the oak that resists it.

Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight; for as the bright orb of the night owes its lustre to the sun, so does reflection owe its existence to reason.

The works of Vapidus might be said not to be the overflowing of a full mind, but the dregs of an exhausted one.

We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking?

Civilization begets vices, but the want of it occasions crimes.

The first heavy affliction rends the veil of illusion, and lets us behold the dark side of life.

Genius is like the eagle which doth make abode in solitude, and, perched on high, looks down forgetful of all meaner birds.

Mediocrity is only offensive when accompanied by pretension; because it then wounds our vanity by implying that it thought itself capable of deceiving us.

The philosophy which has not been acquired in society will rarely enable us to 51resist its injustice; as a person theoretically taught to swim, will find his knowledge of little avail if he fall into a river.

To be listened to with attention, and to acquire the reputation of a good talker, never speak of yourself, but always in implied praise of those you address, or in pungent satire of their contemporaries.

The premature wisdom of youth resembles the forced fruit of our hot-houses: it looks like the natural production, but has not its flavour or raciness.

How must a neglected man of genius, conscious of his own powers, pity those who cannot appreciate him, and who bestow what is his due on mere pretenders.

A term of reproach in England, and of pity in most other countries.

Metaphysics, a science, the study of which proves that to be incomprehensible which was before only suspected of being so.

As the fabled cup of the poet was said to be productive of good or evil, according to the lip that pressed it, so is prosperity productive of virtue or vice, according to the nature of him who possesses it.

No human being is exempt from faults nor destitute of virtues. The wicked, who are many, will quickly detect the first, and the good, who are but few, will alone discern the second. Hence men’s faults will always be more known than their virtues.

We give credit to others for just as much goodness as we ourselves possess.

There are some mortals whose bodies are but as the sepulchres of their dead hearts.

Men who expect little enjoyment in life, and who are therefore not disappointed.

Horne Tooke said of intellectual philosophy, that he had become better acquainted with it, as with the country, though having sometimes lost his way. May not the same be said of virtue? for never is it so truly known or appreciated as by those who, having strayed from its path, have at length regained it.

Those who are poor in good qualities, assume their appearance; as persons who are not sufficiently rich to buy jewels, procure false ones.

A science differently studied by fathers and sons: the first generally confining themselves to addition, and the second to subtraction.

More sacrifices originate in ostentation than generosity.

Desperate is the grief of him whom prosperity having elated and hardened, feels the first arrow of affliction strike at his heart, through the life of the object dearest to him on earth.

There are certain hearts in which the germ of melancholy is implanted even in their earliest youth, and maturity only strengthens it. On such persons, the inevitable ills of life fall with a weight, that, if it crush them not wholly, leaves them eternally bruised in spirit.

If age deprives us of our pleasures, it also deadens our sense of misfortunes, by subduing the acuteness of our sensibility.

Fatality is another name for misconduct.

There are some qualities in our natures rendered noxious or innoxious by their encounter with others,—just as various medicines lose or receive power by an intermixture.

There are as many ruined by their good qualities as enriched by their bad.

Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.

Wisdom is lulled to sleep by pleasure, but awakens at the touch of sorrow.

It is by self-knowledge that we prevent the seeds of evil from arising in our minds, and making that a wilderness of weeds which might have become a garden of precious flowers.

It requires sunshine to see our friends, for they become invisible when our horizon is clouded.

A consolation for those who have no other.

Time is a stream in which there is no mooring the barks of life, because there is no casting anchor in it.

When Inanis writes history, he draws on his imagination; and when he gives us poetry, trusts only to his memory.

We cover our actions with a sort of veil, which, like the varnish on pictures, gives them an artificial lustre that serves to soften their defects.

Pride has seldom a just medium; men have either too much or too little of it. An excess, though most offensive to the spectator, is the least injurious to its possessor, for it saves him from the commission of all actions that beget humiliation, while a deficiency continually entails it upon him.

Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful.

Time is the true Lethe, in which is engulphed the recollection of our sorrows.

Passion is a tyrant strong only through the weakness of his slaves.

The most certain art of pleasing people with us, is to make them pleased with themselves.

Grief lengthens our nights, but shortens our days.

Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only reveal the poverty that compelled the loan.

While we value the praise of our friends, we should not despise the censures of our enemies; as, from the malice of the latter, we frequently learn our faults, which the partiality of the former led them to overlook.

Sorrow sets her seal on the brows of those she has stricken; and, like freemasons, they know each other by a sign, unintelligible to the uninitiated, even when pleasure spreads her fascinations around them.

“Rentrez en vous-même, vous y trouverez les Dieux,” was the advice of an ancient philosopher. 66How few have ever entered into the depth of their own minds, which are to them as undiscovered springs in the abysses of the earth! Enter into your own mind, and if you find not the gods there, you may, by constant examination and correction, render it worthy of becoming their residence.

Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.

Misfortune, though difficult to be borne, has some advantages: it precludes us from fear of the future, proves the sincerity of friends, and even reconciles us to the approach of death; while happiness, however grateful during its brief tenure, is too frequently poisoned by the dread of its interruption.

Politics is a science, which no one believes those who differ with him to understand.

Passion conducts to vice, and sentiment leads to virtue.

Hardness of heart is frequently mistaken for firmness of soul; a want of imagination, for reason; and obstinacy, for strength of character; yet how utterly unlike are they all!

To appear rich, we become poor.

Ostentation produces more sacrifices than generosity.

The conversation of some persons resembles occasional gleams of sunshine, piercing an opaque cloud; the light is only sufficient to make the general darkness visible.

All desire, but few are willing to pay the price of, the good opinion of the world.

He who fears not, is to be feared.

Those only can explore the profoundest depths of suffering who have moral courage sufficient to resist it; as that physical force which augments the violence of fever, enables the patient to survive it. The intenseness of maladies, mental and bodily, is proportioned to the robustness of those condemned to sustain them; and the weak escape, or only slightly experience, the ills which the strong surmount or sink beneath.

“Les grandes pensées viennent du cœur,” was the observation of a reflecting mind: all that touches the heart, gives rise to thoughts more elevated than those that originate only in the head.

Some memories are powerfully retentive of injuries, but totally oblivious of benefits.

Great trials demand, and are generally met by courage; for we summon all our energies to support them. But it is the every-day minor cares of life that weary the temper and irritate the health; because singly, and in detail, they do not appear sufficiently important to induce us to rally our force to encounter them. As the sailor, who, having ploughed the ocean in its fiercest moods, returns to perish in the stream that wantons before his cottage home, so many a mind 71that has withstood the most severe trials, has been broken down by a succession of ignoble vexations.

Courage is often but the effect of despair, for we cease to fear when we have ceased to hope.

Beauty without religion is the most dangerous gift that nature can bestow on woman; and talents without principles, the most pernicious to man.

Malice is the spur of wit, good nature the bridle.

If mediocrity precludes men from attaining distinction, it does not prevent their acquiring popularity, because the mass of mankind are disposed to like those who can excite neither rivalry nor attention, and who consequently leave their own pretensions undisputed.

Modern refinement consists in a delicacy in words, and indelicacy of thoughts and actions.

Is the most uncommon of all senses.

Talents, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be unostentatious.

Feelings are always made the excuse of temper; whereas temper much more frequently influences feelings.

Every production of the vegetable, animal, and moral world, has its natural enemy. See how certain flowers, fruits, and plants, are injured by certain insects; certain animals tormented by certain flies; and certain 74men, by corresponding beings of their own species, who, discovering in them certain qualities, prey on them quite as mortally as do the flies and insects on the objects of their voracity.

It is difficult not to hate those whom we have injured, because the consciousness that we have behaved unworthily, humiliates us too much in our own estimation, not to impel us to avenge it on them.

An esprit fort might frequently, with more justice, be styled une tête foible.

Experience has taught us little, if it has not instructed us to pity the errors of others, and to amend our own.

They who weep over errors, were not formed for crimes.

Those who would preserve a faith in friendship, should never require its aid.

People who fall into the stream of fashion, like those who tumble into the Mississippi river, are seldom saved from its vortex.

Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable, however much we may despise the flatterer.

The hurricane of passion withers the milder feelings, even as the blast of the simoom dries up and consumes all that it passes over.

Pride prevents not the commission of unworthy actions, though it forbids the avowal of them.

Genius is the gold in the mine—education the miner who elicits it.

Intrepidus was a naturally, and Diplomaticus an artificially great man. The first reposing a just confidence in his own powers, required no extraneous aid; while the latter solely depended on his implements for success or failure.

We must learn to bear with society, or to live without it. The latter appears the least difficult task to pursue.

People are seldom tired of the world until the world is tired of them.

Like a bird with wearied pinions flying over the sea, and painfully sensible of the approach of exhaustion while yet in the midst of his career, is he who, tired of life ere half its course is past, gazes with dismay upon the gloomy waste he has still to traverse.

As some insects are said to derive their colour from the leaf upon which they feed, so do the minds of men assume their hue from the studies which they select for it.

The heart, like the cement of the ancient Romans, acquires hardness by time.

The truest consolation for the ills of life, is the recollection of its brevity.

Difficulties vanquish the weak, but are vanquished by the strong.

We never injure our own characters so much, as when we attack those of others.

When one link in the chain of love is broken, its strength and security are gone.

When we have outlived our youth, we have little to regret in the death of our old age; it is but the release of a superannuated friend, who has outlived every other.

It is doubtful whether advantage is derived from a constant intercourse with superior minds. If our own be possessed of power, the collision is likely to excite it into action, and original thoughts are consequently elicited. 83But, if a great inequality exists, the inferior mind is quelled by the strong, or loses whatever features of idiosyncracy it might once have possessed, in an unconscious subserviency to its more vigorous opponent.

How many errors do we confess to our Creator, that we dare not reveal to his fallible creatures.

Love-matches are formed by people who pay for a month of honey with a life of vinegar.

Life resembles a river flowing rapidly to the ocean of eternity, and in its flight passing by brilliant, as well as sombre objects, without the power of doing aught more than for a few brief moments receiving our hue from them.

Works of light literature often have a vogue that more solid ones fail to acquire; as paper kites mount in the air, when a more consistent substance cannot ascend.

We are born to deceive, or to be deceived. In one of these classes we must be numbered; but our self-respect is dependent upon our selection. The practice of deception generally secures its own punishment; for callous indeed must be that mind which is insensible to its ignominy! But he who has been duped, is conscious, even in the very moment that he 86detects the imposition, of his proud superiority to one who can stoop to the adoption of so foul and sorry a course. The really good and high-minded, therefore, are seldom provoked by the discovery of deception; though the cunning and artful resent it, as a humiliating triumph obtained over them in their own vocations.

Concealed griefs are the most consuming, as secret maladies are the most fatal.

Women should not paint love, until they have ceased to inspire it.

As high mountains attract clouds and vapours, so do eminent men attract censure. They act like the conductors placed on lofty buildings to draw the lightning from less elevated objects.

Pedants are often mistaken for savants, yet the difference between them is great; one affects, the other possesses science. The pedant is to the savant, what the apothecary is to the physician: one understands the means, the other both the means and the end.

Wit lives in the present, but genius survives in the future.

Experience enables us to detect the errors of the past, but it seldom guards us against those of the future.

The past shows us but the tombs of our buried illusions and hopes.

All that we bestow in pity to the unfortunate, we take away in respect; hence, he that would be respected must never allow himself to become an object of pity.

Vanity lives on the commendations of others, but pride is supported by self-respect. Hence the vain pine in solitude, while the proud retain their self-reverence and are satisfied.

Persons who never learn the difference between a shilling and a sixpence, until they want the latter.

Existence is only felt to be valuable while it is necessary to some one dear to us. The moment we become aware that our death would leave no aching void in a human heart, the charm of life is gone.

There is a vast difference between a feminine, and an effeminate woman; the first has all the gentleness of her sex,—the second, all the weakness.

The gleams in the poetry of some writers are like straw fires, bright, vivid, but transitory.

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.

The two principal requisites in a courtier are, a flexible conscience, and an inflexible politeness.

There are some misfortunes, the recollection of which floats ever uppermost in our minds, like oil thrown on water.

In the society of persons of mediocrity, he who has the most wit will please the least, for each person will either misunderstand, or be jealous of him.

Cosmetics are to the face, what affectation is to the manners; they impose on none, and disgust many.

A vicious man is governed by his appetites, a weak man by his affections, but a wise man is governed by his principles.

Those women who are most loved by their own sex, are precisely such as are least sought by the other.

He who takes conscience for his guide, will not easily lose his way.

A sensible mind applies patience to misfortunes; a frivolous one, forgetfulness.

They only can thoroughly compassionate misfortune who have drunk from its bitter cup; for, how can the prosperous freely sympathize in that which they have never experienced, and consequently cannot understand?

Youth is pliant and elastic; if it receives impressions easily, they are as easily effaced: but maturity is rigid, and, admitting them slowly, retains them with a proportionate tenacity.

The rewarder of virtue, and avenger of crime.

They only truly mourn the dead, who endeavour so to live as to ensure a re-union with them in heaven.

Some persons are so tenacious of memory, that they forget nothing but the services they have received, and the errors they have committed.

A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question.

Life, like the diamond in a mine, is sometimes valueless to its owner until it becomes estimated by another.

Youthful lovers, like the painter Arellius, always paint the objects of their affection as goddesses.

Spring is the season of hope, and autumn is that of memory.

A fête is one of the many palliatives for that common malady ennui, and, like most palliatives, gives but a temporary relief, generally followed by a return of the disease.

Those are fortunate who borrow experience, instead of buying it.

Misfortunes which have not been caused by our own misconduct, and which we may lay open to sympathy, are but as superficial wounds, which are easily healed; but those which guilt has produced, and shame conceals, 98like the stolen fox of the Spartan boy, prey on the vitals, and the pangs must be concealed, while hiding their inflictor in the breast he feeds on.

When age is seen moving through scenes of gaiety and pleasure, its wrinkles concealed beneath a mask of paint, and its wig wreathed with flowers, it reminds one of the death’s heads which the ancients introduced at their festivals, to recall to their memories the brevity of life, and make them enjoy the present with more zest.

It is when we most suffer, that we least doubt the existence of that Power which can afflict or heal.

We pass our lives in regretting the past, complaining of the present, and indulging false hopes of the future.

Half the errors attributed to love have their source in vanity; and many a person 100has made sacrifices to this unworthy passion, who would have successfully resisted the pleadings of affection.

We are often ashamed of our friends, when it is they who have cause to be ashamed of us.

Pride and poverty are the most ill-assorted companions that can meet. They live in a state of continual warfare, and the sacrifices they exact from each other, like those claimed by enemies to establish a hollow peace, only serve to increase their discord.

In aping the manners of foreign countries, we lose what is best in our own, and only expose ourselves to the ridicule of those we imitate.