But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.

Greatness is a property for which no man gets credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.

All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties.

I could better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws, than with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities rule the world, but at shorter distances, the senses are despotic.

Things are in the saddle. And ride mankind.

And what is Genius but finer love, a love impersonal, a love of the flower and perfection of things, and a desire to draw a new picture or copy of the same? It looks to the cause and life: it proceeds from within outward, whilst Talent goes from without inward.

Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.