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. That which any one has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste. The art of pleasing consists in being pleased. The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires. The essence of poetry is will and passion. The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner. The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of; the last he does not concern himself about. The way to procure insults is to submit to them: a man meets with no more respect than he exacts. We must be doing something to be happy. Memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been. | 
