Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the
intellect.

* * * * *

If you want to find out your real opinion of anyone, observe the
impression made upon you by the first sight of a letter from him.

* * * * *

The course of our individual life and the events in it, as far as their
true meaning and connection is concerned, may be compared to a piece of
rough mosaic. So long as you stand close in front of it, you cannot get
a right view of the objects presented, nor perceive their significance
or beauty. Both come in sight only when you stand a little way off. And
in the same way you often understand the true connection of important
events in your life, not while they are going on, nor soon after they
are past, but only a considerable time afterwards.

Is this so, because we require the magnifying effect of imagination? or
because we can get a general view only from a distance? or because the
school of experience makes our judgment ripe? Perhaps all of these
together: but it is certain that we often view in the right light the
actions of others, and occasionally even our own, only after the lapse
of years. And as it is in one's own life, so it is in history.

Happy circumstances in life are like certain groups of trees. Seen from
a distance they look very well: but go up to them and amongst them, and
the beauty vanishes; you don't know where it can be; it is only trees
you see. And so it is that we often envy the lot of others.

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

A person of phlegmatic disposition who is a blockhead, would, with a
sanguine nature, be a fool.

* * * * *

Now and then one learns something, but one forgets the whole day long.

Moreover our memory is like a sieve, the holes of which in time get
larger and larger: the older we get, the quicker anything entrusted to
it slips from the memory, whereas, what was fixed fast in it in early
days is there still. The memory of an old man gets clearer and clearer,
the further it goes back, and less clear the nearer it approaches the
present time; so that his memory, like his eyes, becomes short-sighted.

* * * * *

In the process of learning y