It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see - i.e. compare it to, something worse or better, that determines whether you are respectively grateful and happy or ungrateful and bitter.

It is very rare that you meet with obstacles in this world, which the humblest man has not faculties to surmount.

The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the decay of humanity; the fragrant flower that springs from it, for the purity and courage which are immortal.

I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted.

My friend is one... who take me for what I am.

There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion.

But the eyes, though they are no sailors, will never be satisfied with any model, however fashionable, which does not answer all the requisitions of art.