A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it you can't expect an apostle to look out.

Barbaric accuracy - whimpering humility.

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay than they think.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year a real genius has his original ideas closer together.

Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede - not because they have a hundred feet but because most people can't count above fourteen.

If moderation is a fault then indifference is a crime.

Every man has his moral backside too which he doesn't expose unnecessarily but keeps covered as long as possible by the trousers of decorum.

The lower classes of men though they do not think it worthwhile to record what they perceive nevertheless perceive everything that is worth noting the difference between them and a man of learning often consists in nothing more than the latter's facility for expression.

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage he won't encounter many rivals.

With most people doubt about one thing is simply blind belief in another.

One can live in this world on soothsaying but not on truth saying.

Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.