Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.

Books wind into the heart.

If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them; if we are constantly with them, we despise them.

Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight; and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass.

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.