A pity about the people! they are brave enough comrades, but they have heads like a soapboiler's.

Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

I know that we often tremble at an empty terror; yet the false fancy brings a real misery.

Every man stamps his value on himself... man is made great or small by his own will.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives.

Measure not by the scale of perfection the meager product of reality.