People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.

Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.

The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.

Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.

It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.