The enemy of art is the enemy of nature; art is nothing but the highest sagacity and exertion of human nature; and what nature will he honour who honours not the human?

The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.

Conscience is wiser than science.

Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.

Learn the value of a man's words and expressions, and you know him. Each man has a measure of his own for everything; this he offers you inadvertently in his words. He who has a superlative for everything wants a measure for the great or small.

The creditor whose appearance gladdens the heart of a debtor may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.

Don't speak evil of someone if you don't know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?