One must be something to be able to do something.
Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.
The most fortunate of men, Be he a king or commoner, is he Whose welfare is assured in his own home.
You are, when all is done-just what you are.
Let him who believes in immortality enjoy his happiness in silence; he has no reason to give himself airs about it.
Time flies, and what is past is done.
Kindness is the golden thread that holds society together.
Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.
Any trifle is enough to entertain two lovers.
There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers.
It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.
A noble man is led by woman’s gentle words.
A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.
The few of understanding, vision rare, Who veiled not from the herd their hearts, but tried, Poor generous fools, to lay their feelings bare, Them have men always burnt and crucified.
The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.
Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.
Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.
People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.
Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you’ll never manage to button up.
If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.