“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”

In this commonplace world every one is said to be romantic who either admires a fine thing or does one.

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?

Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve.

Get your enemy to read your works in order to mend them, for your friend is so much your second self that he will judge too like you.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

When we are young, we are slavishly employed in procuring something whereby we may live comfortably when we grow old; and when we are old, we perceive it is too late to live as we proposed.

All nature is but art unknown to thee.

Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend.

Physicians are in general the most amiable companions and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong.

Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He’s sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres’ gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper’s hand.

All seems infected that th’ infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.

Expression is the dress of thought.

The laughers are a majority.

One day Boudin said to me, ‘Learn to draw well and appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky.’ I took his advice.

Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

Most of us are wiser than we may appear to be. On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice.

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.

The best advice I have been given is to live in the moment, as cliché as that sounds. It’s crazy.

The hypocrite takes good advice as an insult.

You’ve just got to give yourself time – that’s good advice I think. Give yourself time to figure out what you’re good at and what you’re not good at.