Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.

Personally, I have a great admiration for stupidity.

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

Every one of course represents the spirit of his age, but there is an eternal aspect of the Spirit of every age which may be caught. To recreate the past from the mutilated fragments of the present is the task of the Historian.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.