Genius is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.

To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment.

Of all the virtues necessary to the completion of the perfect man, there is none to be more delicately implied and less ostentatiously vaunted than that of exquisite feeling or universal benevolence.

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature the oldest.

Art does not imitate nature, but founds itself on the study of nature, takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, viz: The mind and soul of man.

The higher the rank the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to.

The worst part of an eminent man's conversation is, nine times out of ten, to be found in that part by which he means to be clever.