I have been formerly so silly as to hope that every servant I had might be made a friend; I am now convinced that the nature of servitude generally bears a contrary tendency. People's characters are to be chiefly collected from their education and place in life; birth itself does but little.

I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular; that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.

Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.

Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.

There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is that people can commend it without envy.

A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.