Friends should be weighed, not told; who boasts to have won a multitude of friends has never had one.

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.

A rogue is a roundabout fool.

Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice and the instruments of seduction.

We have no adequate conception of the perfection of the ancient tragic dance. The pleasure which the greeks received from it had for its basis difference; & the more unfit the vehicle, the more lively was the curiosity & intense the delights at seeing the difficulty overcome.

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.

Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their action.