People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.
Prosperity is a great teacher adversity a greater.
Zeal will do more than knowledge.
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
The seat of knowledge is in the head of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
Learning is its own exceeding great reward.
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence a vain man, in order that it may.
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.
A wise traveler never despises his own country.
Life is the art of being well deceived and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust hatred alone is immortal.
We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
The incentive to ambition is the love of power.
It is not fit that every man should travel it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
The humblest painter is a true scholar and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.