Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

• But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
• The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
• Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
• Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
• Beauty is the promise of happiness.
• Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
• I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
• We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
• A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
• Education is the cheap defense of nations.