The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.

Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow.

Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

Duty grows everywhere--like children, like grass.

There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

As picture teaches the colouring, so sculpture the anatomy of form.

Every moment instructs, and every object; for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence until after long time.