There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.

The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.

Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur.

There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.

My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.