Those who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing.

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.

That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.

This is the test and triumph of originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and retain it.

To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.

The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.