“As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.”

Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.

In sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.

Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

To know how to hide one’s ability is great skill.

There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.

Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.

Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.

Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.

We promise in proportion to our hopes, and we deliver in proportion to our fears.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

I would never accept the recommendation of the theological faculty.

The true scientist never loses the faculty of amazement.

Some of our philosophizing divines have too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained that by their force mankind has been able to find out God.

Realisation is not acquisition of anything new nor is it a new faculty. It is only removal of all camouflage.

God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.

Instinct perfected is a faculty of using and even constructing organized instruments; intelligence perfected is the faculty of making and using unorganized instruments.

What is imagination? It is a God-like, a noble faculty. It renders earth tolerable, it teaches us to live, in the tone of the eternal.

Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science.