I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.

The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

My trade and my art is living. He who forbids me to speak about it according to my sense, experience, and practice, let him orderthe architect to speak of buildings not according to himself but according to his neighbor; according to another man's knowledge, not according to his own.

Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing.

It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.