"A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out."
"It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists."
"Before we blame, we should first see if we can't excuse."
"He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards."
"To read means to borrow; to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts."
"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all."
"A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system and to find out how the rest behaves."
"To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still."
"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better."
"Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it."
"A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents."
"Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together."
"Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself."
"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all."
"The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle."
"Don't judge a man by his opinions, but by what his opinions have made him."
"Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself."
"Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself."
"Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together."
"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all."
"Don't judge a man by his opinions, but by what his opinions have made him."
"The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle."
"He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards."
"Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it."
"To read means to borrow; to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts."