Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.

That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.

Prudent and active men, who know their strength and use it with limit and circumspection, alone go far in the affairs of the world.

Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

Most men, even the most accomplished, are of limited faculties; every one sets a value on certain qualities in himself and others: these alone he is willing to favour, these alone will he have cultivated.

We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.

He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.