A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.

Charity, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Next to putting it in a bank, men like to squander their superfluous wealth on those to whom it is sure to be doing the least possible good.

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.

Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.

There is nothing so remote from vanity as true genius. It is almost as natural for those who are endowed with the highest powers of the human mind to produce the miracles of art, as for other men to breathe or move. Correggio, who is said to have produced some of his divinest works almost without having seen a picture, probably did not know that he had done anything extraordinary.

Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.