The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.

Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute.

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

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.

The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Painting gives the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself; poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it.