...a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.

The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.

Man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for a colleague.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers, men of genius, world-enlighteners, and reformers of the human race are those who have read directly in the book of the world.

The faculty for remembering is not diminished in proportion to what one has learnt, just as little as the number of moulds in which you cast sand lessens its capacity for being cast in new moulds.

Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.