The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.

The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.

Great men should not have great faults.

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.

There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.

Men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly but at a distance.

We often boast that we are never bored; but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others.