Hope is the best possession.

It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.

We can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home!

Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident; wit is the product of art and fancy.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.

We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves.

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.