We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.

Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.

Love is like a hunter, who cares not for the game when once caught, which he may have pursued with the most intense and breathless eagerness. Love is strongest in pursuit; friendship in possession.

There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.

A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill.

Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality.

I have never met a man who was not my superior in some particular.