Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.
Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
Doubt grows with knowledge.
If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.
The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.
A person hears only what they understand.
Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.
Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.
The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.