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

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.

One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.

When you find out a man's ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it.

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.

Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They have not been "hurt by the archers", nor has the iron entered their souls. The world has no hand on them.