“No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools, for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one.”

“Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.”

“History is the long, difficult and confused dream of Mankind.”

“The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.”

“Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to turn into”

“The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work.”

“Concentration is the secret of srength.”

“How much more the seeker of abstract truth, who needs periods of isolation, and rapt concentration, and almost a going out of thebody to think!”