The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
No man knows himself as an original.
He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down.
Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.
Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise; it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt, but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it: feel it, and hate in silence.
Desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.