There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.

Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.

The universal subjugator, the commonplace.

Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and little by little will multiply.

If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.