It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation - to force the esteem of others - seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation.

Great men are the real men, in them nature has succeeded.

Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and is lending oneself to the universal illusion without becoming its dupe.

To feel keenly the poetry of a morning's roses, one has to have just escaped from the claws of this vulture which we call sickness.

Only evil grows of itself, while for goodness we want effort and courage.

Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of ideas supplied by genius.

True humility is contentment.