No truly great person ever thought themselves so.

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.

We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility

We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues.

A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.