To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
Where there are no women there are no good manners.
On every mountain height is rest.
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.
The realization of the self is only possible if one is productive, if one can give birth to one’s own potentialities.
I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, “The same as everywhere.”
Take life too seriously, and what is it worth? If the morning wake us to no new joys, if the evening bring us not the hope of new pleasure, is it worthwhile to dress and undress?
The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny.
Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any; but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.
If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.
Traveling is like gambling: it is always connected with winning and losing and generally where it is least expected we receive, more or less than what we hoped for.
We are the slaves of objects around us, and appear little or important according as these contract or give us room to expand.
One glance, one word from you gives more pleasure than all the wisdom of this world.
Know’st thou yesterday, its aim and reason? Work’st thou will today for worthier things? Then calmly wait the morrow’s hidden season, And fear thou not, what hap soe’er it brings.
First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others.
The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.
It is related of an Englishman that he hanged himself to avoid the daily task of dressing and undressing.