Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.
A library implies an act of faith.
People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
Don't walk behind me I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses of one's dreams. In what other way can one deal with them? Unless the content of the dream rightly understood is inspired by alien spirits, it is part of my own being.
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
The question I asked Georges has now become a general one - You, who thought you were superfluous, who thought there was no place for you in society, not only are you not superfluous, you are needed and so those who were beggars become givers.
Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.
Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.
You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
In strife who inquires whether stratagem or courage was used?
Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
In married life three is company and two none.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
Be content with what you are, and wish not change nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
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