Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.

It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.

Silence is one great art of conversation.

Envy is littleness of soul.

I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.

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