 Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name! |
| We think that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love. |
| I strove with none; for none was worth my strife. |
| Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess. |
| Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good. |
| Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much. |
| Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend. |
| A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice. |
| The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour. |
| We often fancy that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love. |
| No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner. |
| My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them. |
| The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander. |
| Delay in justice is injustice. |
| We talk on principal, but act on motivation. |
| 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. |
| Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws. |
| Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. |
| There is nothing on earth divine except humanity. |
| We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier. |
