The proportion of genius to the vulgar is like one to a million.

Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.

Words are the wings of actions.

Vanity and rudeness are seldom seen together.

The less you can enjoy, the poorer, the scantier yourself - the more you can enjoy, the richer, the more vigorous.

Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.

Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable.