Genius Borrows nobly.
As soon as there is life there is danger.
Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.
Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.
And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.
As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.
The more you know the less you understand.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.
Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.
It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
When a man is just and firm in his purpose, the citizens burning to approve a wrong or the frowning looks of a tyrant. Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind. Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic, nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove: Should the heavens crack and tumble down, as the ruins crushed him he would not fear.
It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
