It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.

Rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.