Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it's the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The Skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.

What we do not understand we do not possess.

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents.

The little that is completed, vanishes from the sight of one who looks forward to what is still to do.

Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.

Thou must (in commanding and winning, or serving and losing, suffering or triumphing) be either anvil or hammer.