We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert

The use of a thing is only a part of its significance. To know anything thoroughly, to have the full command of it in all its appliances, we must study it on its own account, independently of any special application.

Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.

Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them.

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.

Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.