“Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.”
“It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.”
“An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.”
“A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.”
“I would like to spend my whole life traveling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home.”
“Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.”
“There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.”
“Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.”
“There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.”
“The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.”
“No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.”
“There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.”
“The only vice which 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.”
“A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.”
“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. We cannot force love.”
“We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”
“People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.”
“The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.”
“A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one -- they show one another off to the best advantage.”
“To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.”
“The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.”
“To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.”
“Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.”
“The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.”
“Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.”
“Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.”
“Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.”
“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 least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.”