alent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.

To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will.

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 fly ought to be used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity; for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else, and run away even before he comes near them, the fly lights upon his very nose.

A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles, for then he is off his guard.