Some women destroy all your sensibility towards them by their coldness, others by their heat.

Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?

Habit is the cement of society, the comfort of life, and, alas! The root of error.

O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; Created sick, commanded to be sound.

Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

The mind's eye is perhaps no better fitted for the full radiance of truth, than is the body's for that of the sun.

The criterion of true beauty is that it increases on examination; if false, that it lessens.

There are sometimes beauties in a character which would never have appeared but for a defect, and defects which would never have appeared but for a beauty.

Love will sacrifice more to others than friendship, but then it exacts more from them.

How happy is it for us, that the admiration of others should depend so much more on their ignorance than our perfection!

It is proper for people to have friends, friendships without self-interest. Without friends, life is too lonely.

I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smooth.

I love driving the cool cars, but there is nothing like driving a pickup truck.

It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism.

Wilderness is a necessity... there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls.

There is a conservation of matter and of energy, there may be a conservation of life; or if not of life, of something which transcends life.

Forgiveness is its own reward.

First thoughts are not always the best.

The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.