In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature.

He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated.

Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.

And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.

A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.