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

It is easier to make a lady of a peasant-girl than a peasant-girl of a lady.

Everyone loves his own country, customs, language, wife, children, not because they are the best in the world, but because they are his established property, and he loves in them himself, and the labor he has bestowed on them. The working of revolutions, therefore, misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. Ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.

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.

Those that embrace the entire universe with love, for the most part love nothing, but their narrow selves.