The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.

Friendship * * * is a long time in forming, it is of slow growth, through many trials and months of familiarity.

High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor.

Life at court does not satisfy a man, but it keeps him from being satisfied with anything else.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.

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

We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.