Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

The falsest of all philosophies is that which, under the pretext of delivering men from the embarrassment of their passions, counsels idleness and the abandonment and neglect of themselves.

The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.

If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.

The mind reaches great heights only by spurts.

The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.

If a man is endowed with a noble and courageous soul, if he is painstaking, proud, ambitious, without meanness, of a profound a deep-seated intelligence, I dare assert that he lacks nothing to be neglected by the great and men in high office, who fear, more than other men, those whom they cannot dominate.