Tyrants never perish from tyranny, but always from folly,-when their fantasies have built up a palace for which the earth has no foundation.

I never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought so.

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.

The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight.

Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away, or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood, of those who press earnestly upon it.

Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.