Great success is commoner than great abilities.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

To possess taste, one must have some soul.

It is not true that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality. Its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.

Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.