We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

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.

The look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world.

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.

Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute.

The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.