The family is one of nature's masterpieces.

Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.

By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.

In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality. The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.

The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything.

The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.

The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.

Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape; a spirit with any honor is not willing to live except in its own way, and a spirit with any wisdom is not over-eager to live at all.