It is good breeding alone that can prepossess people in your favor at first sight, more time being necessary to discover greater talents.

Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.

We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

Sculpture and painting are very justly called liberal arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation, being absolutely necessary to excel in either; which, in my opinion, is by no means the case of music, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed even above the other two--a proof of the decline of that country.

The scholar without good breeding is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic.