No man can help another without helping himself.

A good intention clothes itself with sudden power. When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble will bud and shoot out winged feet, and serve him for a horse.

The world leaves no track in space, and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea.

Thought dissolves the material universe by carrying the mind up into a sphere where all is plastic.

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

The best nations are those most widely related; and navigation, as effecting a world-wide mixture, is the most potent advancer ofnations.

I have been told by persons of experience in matters of taste, that the fashions follow a law of gradation, and are never arbitrary. The new mode is always only a step onward in the same direction as the last mode; and a cultivated eye is prepared for and predicts the new fashion.