Bashfulness is more frequently connected with good sense than we find assurance; and impudence, on the other hand, is often the mere effect of downright stupidity.

Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money.

In designing a house and gardens, it is happy when there is an opportunity of maintaining a subordination of parts; the house so luckily place as to exhibit a view of the whole design. I have sometimes thought that there was room for it to resemble a epic or dramatic poem.

Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.

A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.

Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.

Love can be founded upon Nature only.