Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.

The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.

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

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.

Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.

By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves.

The greatest reverses of fortune are the most easily borne from a sort of dignity belonging to them.