The word of man is the most durable of all material.

I am often surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity, of my dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind.

To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Sexual passion is the cause of war and the end of peace, the basis of what is serious... and consequently the concentration of all desire