"I am amazed to see how deliberately..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.”

“Toleration ought in reality to be merely a transitory mood. It must lead to recognition. To tolerate is to affront.”

“He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.”

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”

“It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.”

“To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else.”

“...the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn't, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!”

“There's always this assumption that you're going to get everything right immediately. And any professional understands that that's just not so.”

“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.”