Life is to short to be small.

Everything comes if a man will only wait.

You asked me where I generally lived. In my workshop [i.e. in his study] in the mornings and always in the library in the evening. Books are companions even if you don’t open them.

Destiny bears us to our lot, and destiny is perhaps our own will.

The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age.

Knowledge must be gained by ourselves. Mankind may supply us with facts; but the results, even if they agree with previous ones, must be the work of our own minds.

There are amusing people who do not interest, and interesting people who do not amuse