We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.

...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is.

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.

When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away.

The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference; it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas.