Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is.

The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires.

All great men come out of the middle classes.

The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.

We are disgusted by gossip; yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their proprieties.