If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.

A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.

Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.

The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects; it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect; it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.

A well-born man is fortunate, but so is the man about whom people no longer ask, 'is he well-born?'

Make me chaste and To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!