A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them

No man can thoroughly master more than one art or science.

Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.

Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.

The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.

We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.