Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business: and gives in the long run a net result of zero.

Friend, hast thou considered the "rugged, all-nourishing earth," as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man?

He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years.

A person with a clear purpose will make progress, even on the roughest road. A person with no purpose will make no progress, even on the smoothest road.

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.