“There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.”

Seraphs share with thee Knowledge; but Art, O Man, is thine alone!

For the world is only governed by self-interest.

The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.

Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others. Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.

Emulation is a noble and just passion, full of appreciation.

Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.

Even now, nature is the only flame, on which the poetic spirit feeds; from it alone it draws all its power, to it alone it speaks even in the artificial, in the man engaged in culture.

Time consecrates; and what is gray with age becomes religion.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

Gray hairs are death’s blossoms.

Love is only known by him who hopelessly persists in love.

Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn’t roar?

Even weak men when united are powerful.

The brave person thinks of himself last of all.

Whatever is not forbidden is permitted.

Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse.

One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.

Accidental things have purpose.

Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.

The trouble with a movie is that it’s old before it’s released. It’s no accident that it comes in a can.

A director is someone who presides over a series of accidents.