Life is the art of being well deceived and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.
The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
The humblest painter is a true scholar and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
It is not fit that every man should travel it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.
The seat of knowledge is in the head of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
Prosperity is a great teacher adversity a greater.
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
The incentive to ambition is the love of power.
Learning is its own exceeding great reward.
I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence a vain man, in order that it may.
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.
There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust hatred alone is immortal.
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
Zeal will do more than knowledge.
The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.
A wise traveler never despises his own country.
To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.