It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.