The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion.

The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.

There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.

Man is doomed either squander his youth, which is the only time he has to store provisions for the coming years and provide for his own well-being, or to spend his youth procuring pleasures in advance for that time of life when he will be too old to enjoy them.

Irresolute men are sometimes very persistent in their undertakings, because if they give up their designs they would have to make a second resolution.

Since the world never faults a man who refuses to yield...it is generally recognized that weak men live in obedience to the world's will, while the strong obey only their own.

That is why all great men are modest: they consistently measure themselves not in comparison to other people but to the idea of perfection ever present in their minds, an ideal infinitely clearer and greater than any common people have, and they also realize how far they are from fulfilling their ideal.