How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or mother's life?

It is greatest to believe and to hope well of the world, because he who does so, quits the world of experience, and makes the world he lives in.

America is not civil, whilst Africa is barbarous.

A man should not be a silkworm; nor a nation a tent of caterpillars.

For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe.

A man is related to all nature.

A beautiful person among the Greeks, was thought to betray by this sign some secret favor of the immortal gods; and we can pardonpride, when a woman possesses such a figure that wherever she stands, or moves, or leaves a shadow on the wall, or sits for a portrait to the artist, she confers a favor on the world.