A belief is not true simply because it is useful.

There are 2 sorts of pride: one in which we approve others, the other in which we cannot accept ourselves.

I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.

A woman is sometimes fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her, and a good deal of prudence exercised with regard to her, for she may bring about innumerable evils without knowing it. Capable of all kinds of devotion, and of all kinds of treason, monster incomprehensible, raised to the second power, she is at once the delight and the terror of man.

The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers.

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things.

Put personal ambition away from you, and then you will find consolation in living or in dying, whatever may happen to you.