There is nothing so remote from vanity as true genius. It is almost as natural for those who are endowed with the highest powers of the human mind to produce the miracles of art, as for other men to breathe or move. Correggio, who is said to have produced some of his divinest works almost without having seen a picture, probably did not know that he had done anything extraordinary.

True friendship is self-love at second-hand.

In love we do not think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love.

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.

We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.

The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice.