“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
“An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards
“A vigorous temper is not altogether an evil. Men who are easy as an old shoe are generally of little worth.
“We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
“It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
“He is one of a crowd, a taxpayer, an elector, an anonymity, but not a man.Source: Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel
“I shall be very glad to make plain in this discourse the paths I have followed, and to picture my life so that all may judge of it, and by the setting forth of their opinions may furnish me with yet other means of improvement.Source: A Discourse on Method (1637), Prefatory note
“I have lerned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great
“Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.
“In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.
“Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense