The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.

To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.

Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.

Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.

Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.

Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty; but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.