The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather than without.
Our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us.
No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any other person.
All progress is based upon the universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted and at seeing it practised.
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
People care more about being thought to have good taste than about being thought either good clever or amiable.
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.
All truth is not to be told at all times.
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
