“Fools and wise-folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.”

“It is delightful to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us.”

“It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.”

“The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been recognised by others.”

“But who will dare to speak the truth out clear?The few who anything of truth have learned,And foolishly did not keep truth concealed,Their thoughts and visions to the common herd revealed,Since time began we've crucified and burned”

“Shame upon him who can look on calmly, and exclaim,‘The foolish girl! she should have waited; she should haveallowed time to wear off the impression; her despair wouldhave been softened, and she would have found another loverto comfort her.’ One might as well say, ‘The fool, to die of afever! why did he not wait till his strength was restored, tillhis blood became calm? all would then have gone well, andhe would have been alive now.”

“When a nation which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease which in the absence of excitement he could scarcely move; he who under the rage of an insult attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies,—are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?”