Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone – but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.
There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.
The worst old age is that of the mind.
Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.
The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.