Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

The savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species

As the shadow in early morning, is friendship with the wicked; it dwindles hour by hour. But friendship with the good increases, like the evening shadows, till the sun of life sets.

The friend who holds up before me the mirror, conceals not my smallest faults, warns me kindly, reproves me affectionately, when I have not performed my duty, he is my friend, however little he may appear so. But if a man praises and lauds me, never reproves me, overlooks my faults, and forgives them before I have repented, he is my enemy, however much he may appear my friend.

We live in a world we ourselves create.

Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.