Sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism; and excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness. The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.
False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it.
Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
Books are embalmed minds.
Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.
The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.
We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.
When all else is lost, the future still remains.
Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave.
A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome it.
Living with a saint is more grueling than being one.
Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.
The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.
Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.
The great artist is a slave to his ideals.
