It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.
In truth the most striking figure for the relation of the two is that of the strong blind man carrying the sighted lame man on his shoulders.
In our part of the world where monogamy is the rule, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.
If you want to find out your real opinion of anyone, observe the impression made upon you by the first sight of a letter from him.
If you desire to get on in the world, friends and acquaintances are by far the best passport to fortune.
If we were not all of us exaggeratedly interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that no one could endure it.
If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.
Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
Hatred comes from the heart, contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.
Great minds are related to the short span of time wherein they live as are large buildings to the narrow plot of ground on which they stand. Thus large buildings are not seen to their full extent because we are too close to them.
Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.