No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.

There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer.

There is no easy path leading out of life, and few easy ones that lie within it.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

We talk on principal, but act on motivation.

We think that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him.

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.