The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.

Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied, for they know not what they should do.

I am sure of this, that by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books.

I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot.