“A tendancy to melancholy… let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.”

Source: Lady Windermere's Fan

Source: The Natural System of Political Economy (1837), p. 33

Edward G. Abington, a former State Department official who is now a Washington consultant to the Palestinian Authority regarding the future of the Palestinian Authority http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17536-2004Feb29.html (2004-02-29) -->
2000s

1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)

Letter to a Quaker (1798)
Context: I recollect about 20 years since that a number of Quaker friends were sent to Winchester by Government, for some cause which I never understood so well, not being in the Legislature, but in a Department, the employment of which afforded little time to enquire into the propriety or impropriety of your Banishment — but I well recolect you among others of the unfortunate — am sorry to observe that such misfortunes Generally take place on revolutions, and often very unjustly.

Variant translation: Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.
III, 42.
Epigrams (c. 80 – 104 AD)

Source: The Marvelous Land of Oz

As quoted in letter to Henry Ward Beecher, by Mark Twain.

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 1; comparable to: "All human race, from China to Peru, Pleasure, howe’er disguis’d by art, pursue", Thomas Warton, Universal Love of Pleasure