“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Books must follow sciences and not sciences books.

Money is a great servant but a bad master.

There is no exquisite beauty, without some strangeness in the proportion.

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.

Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.

Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.