The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.

I didn't find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

The highest praise we can attribute to any writer, painter, sculptor, builder, is, that he actually possessed the thought or feeling with which he has inspired us.

A man's library is a sort of harem.