X. I am proud up to the point of equality—every thing above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
XI. The ignorant and vulgar think that a man wants spirit, if he does not insult and triumph over them. This is a great mistake.
XII. For a man to be a coxcomb, shews a want of imagination. No one will ever pride himself on his beauty who has studied the head of the Antinous, or be in danger of running into the excess of the fashion, who has any knowledge of the Antique. The ideal is incompatible with personal vanity.
XIII. A scholar is like a book written in a dead language—it is not every one that can read in it.
XIV. Just as much as we see in others, we have in ourselves.
XV. A painter gives only his own character in a portrait, whether grave or gay, gross or refined, wise or foolish. Even in copying a head, there is some difficulty in making the features unlike our own. A person with a low forehead or a short chin puts a constraint upon himself in painting a high forehead or a long chin. So much has sympathy to do with the operations both of the eye and the hand, with observation and practice!
XVI. People at a play hiss an unsuccessful author or actor, as if the latter had committed some heinous crime—he has committed the greatest crime, that of setting up a superiority over us which he has failed to make good.
XVII. The rich, who do nothing themselves, represent idleness as the greatest crime. They have reason: it is necessary that some one should do something.
XVIII. What a pity that kings and great men do not write books, instead of mere authors! What superior views they must have of things, and how the world would be benefited by the communication!
XIX. The greatest proof of superiority is to bear with impertinence.