To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.

Probably no invention came more easily to man than heaven.

One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them.

To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.

Ambition and suspicion always go together.