A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

There is only one science, love, one riches, love, only one policy, love. To make love is all the law and the prophets.

You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones.

The faculty of doubting is rare among men. A few choice spirits carry the germs of it in them, but these do not develop without training.

There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.