I may be wrong, but it seems rare in our age to find a widely praised person whose own mouth is not the source of that praise.

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.

He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.

The old man, especially if he is in society in the privacy of his thoughts, though he may protest the opposite, never stops believing that, through some singular exception of the universal rule, he can in some unknown and inexplicable way still make an impression on women.

Man is almost always as wicked as his needs require.

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.

It's interesting to observe that almost all truly worthy men have simple manners, and that simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth