He that seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius: as he must needs paint for other minds, and not for his own.

The true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us.

Fame is that which is known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds.

A cunning mind emphatically delights in its own cunning, and is the ready prey of cunning.

Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but philosophically fulfilled.

I have great admiration for power, a great terror of weakness, especially in my own sex, yet feel that my love is for those who overcome the mental and moral suffering and temptation through excess of tenderness rather than through excess of strength.

Reputation being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the Envious and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness.