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

Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.

Experiments are mediators between nature and idea.

The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish.