Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

Things are always at their best in their beginning.

We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we never are so.

It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.

As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.

We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.

Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.