From the height from which the great look down on the world all the rest of mankind seem equal.

Grace in women has more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations and derives pleasure from all around it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, "in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their face," which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them.

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.

Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly.

There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.

Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.