Wisdom begins in wonder.
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.
In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.
Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.
Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.
I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
Only poetry inspires poetry.
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
I was exceedingly delighted with the waltz, and also with the polka. These differ in name, but there the difference ceases
Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality.
Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.
