Great is he who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man to whom all his plate is no more that earthenware.

It's the great soul that surrenders itself to fate, but a puny degenerate thing that struggles.

The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. It is more powerful than external circumstances.

One must steer, not talk.

Genius has never been accepted without a measure of condonement.

There are more people abusive to others than lie open to abuse themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.

We are so vain as to set the highest value upon those things to which nature has assigned the lowest place. What can be more coarse and rude in the mind than the precious metals, or more slavish and dirty than the people that dig and work them? And yet they defile our minds more than our bodies, and make the possessor fouler than the artificer of them. Rich men, in fine, are only the greater slaves.