When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

If I work incessantly to the last, nature owes me another form of existence when the present one collapses.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion

Fortunately, we can take in only so much misfortune; what exceeds that limit either destroys us or leaves us indifferent.

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it