Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.

The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best.

And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it! Eureka!".

When one is transported by rage, it is best to observe attentively the effects on those who deliver themselves over to the same passion.

Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.

The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.