It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them.

A reasonable man needs only to practice moderation to find happiness.

I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.

The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people is satisfied with ornament.

Nature! We are enveloped and embraced by her, incapable of emerging from her and incapable of entering her more deeply. Unbidden and unwarned, she receives us into the circuits of her dance, drifting onward with us herself, until we grow tired and drop from her arms.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

And here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.