Egomet Bonmot

“ The loftiest sense of independence induces a man to recognise implicitly the forms of social distinctions as matters of course, important in a public view, and indifferent in a personal one. Every high mind must be made aware, by its own consciousness, that no essential difference in worth or respectability is denoted by the various styles in which individuals are addressed; but a certain weak impatience is often found pushing people to a childish resistance against these forms; and this resistance denotes, more than anything else, a feverish sensibility to their import. ”

“ The French people, it has been lately said by one of their own writers, have much less affection for liberty than for equality. The restless vanity of individuals, running through all classes, has rendered varieties of rank quite unpopular in France. Each person feels his neighbour's distinction to be an indignity to himself. ”

“ Nor do we know that it can, in any country, be regarded as unfair, to bring to the recollection of the privileged orders, that intellect has nothing necessarily to do with patents of nobility—although there are many brilliant examples, living ones and others, proving that such patents, and the highest intellectual honours, may be united. ”