'Tis never for their wisdom that one loves the wisest, or for their wit that one loves the wittiest; 'tis for benevolence, and virtue, and honest fondness, one loves people; the other qualities make one proud of loving them too.

Letter to Fanny Burney; Charlotte Barrett (ed.) Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay (1854) vol. 2, p. 3.