The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste.

The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.

A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.

A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.

Liberty is the only true riches: of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves.

Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.

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