The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly hamonized; it is true to life.

To become reconciled to a friend with whom you have broken, is a form of weakness; and you pay the penalty of it when he takes the first opportunity of doing precisely the very thing which brought about the breach.

First the truth is ridiculed. Then it meets outrage. Then it is said to have been obvious all along.

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.

In many cases hate a person is rooted in the involuntary estimate of its virtues.

There is not a grain of dust, not an atom that can become nothing, yet man believes that death is the annhilation of his being.

The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. For father the former has intellect; the latter genius, which itself is a kind of luxury.