 To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous. |
| Zeal will do more than knowledge. |
| There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man. |
| One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect. |
| We must be doing something to be happy. |
| As is our confidence, so is our capacity. |
| Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses. |
| Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote. |
| It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse. |
| The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices. |
| A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. |
| Rules and models destroy genius and art. |
| Grace in women has more effect than beauty. |
| Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration. |
| The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet. |
| We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. |
| We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects. |
| We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love. |
| We are not hypocrites in our sleep. |
| I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home. |
