If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be, you do.

I've often heard it said a preacher might learn with a comedian for a teacher.

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

Everything is hard before it is easy.

The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern; and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.

One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.