Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.

On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.

For there are two distinct sorts of ideas: Those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.

I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please.

Youth is a blossom whose fruit is love; happy is he who plucks it after watching it slowly ripen.

Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.

I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and independent, relying only on my own resources, and accountable only to myself.