All your fingernails grow with no convenient speed except broken one.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character

A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciouness varying with readers.

Passionsare generally roused by great conflicts.

One cannot be precise and still be pure.

The greatest trust between man and man is the trust ofgiving counsel.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.

It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that submerged truth sometimes comes to top.

The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture; like a school boy's holiday, with a task affixed to the tail of it.

Hatred does not not cease by hatred; but only by rule; this is the eternal rule.