The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late.

The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it... but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.

I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.