Life is a kind of chess.

I say it is impossible that so sensible a people [citizens of Paris], under such circumstances, should have lived so long by the smoky, unwholesome, and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known that they might have had as much pure light of the sun for nothing.

Two passions have powerful influence on the affairs of men: the love of power and the love of money.

I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with. How shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has? Answer. Commend her among her female acquaintances.

At the working man’s house, hunger looks in but dares not enter.

No European who has tasted savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.

When you're finished changing, you're finished.