No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.

What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.

Literature is a fragment of a fragment. Of all that ever happened, or has been said, but a fraction has been written; and of this but little is extant.

The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

Necessity is cruel, but it is the only test of inward strength. Every fool may live according to his own likings.

What chance gathers, she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.