They who derive their worth from their ancestors resemble potatoes, the most valuable part of which is underground.

For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.

...neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.

People prefer to believe what they want to be true.

It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.