“People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.”
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”
“I will not be as those who spend the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.”
“Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.”
“So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!”
“The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.”
“All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.”
“Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.”
“Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.”
“Master and Doctor are my titles; for ten years now, without repose, I held my erudite recitals and led my pupils by the nose.”
“People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.”
“Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”
“We are the slaves of objects around us, and appear little or important according as these contract or give us room to expand.”
“If you treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.”
“The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.”
“If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be right with the whole.”
“Some of our weakness is born in us, some of it comes through education; it is a big question as to which gives us the most trouble.”
“If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. They will make note of this and not remain in your debt long.”
“Austere perseverance, hash and continuous... rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistible greater with time.”
“People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.”
“Rejoice that you have still have a long time to live, before the thought comes to you that there is nothing more in the world to see.”
“Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.”
“People may live as much retired from the world as they like, but sooner or later they find themselves debtor or creditor to some one.”
“Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.”
“Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.”
“Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.”
“Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.”
“Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.”
“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”