Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.

Silence is one great art of conversation.

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.

Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.

Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.

Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.