I don't know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.

In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!

In art, the best is good enough.

At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.

How many kings are governed by their ministers, how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief?

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.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.