The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.

The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.