It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.

The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny.

Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

Energy will do anything that can be done in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.

Perseverance is a silent power that grows irresistibly greater with time.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.