When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

A person's life is limited but serving the people is limitless. I want to devote my limited life to serving the people limitlessly.

A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.

Beauty is the moment of transition, as if the form were just ready to flow into other forms.

In good writing, words become one with things.

Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; we often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the clouds and the rain.

We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.