Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.

One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

And when your soul becometh great, then doth it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is wickedness.

As a result, nature is something entirely different from what comes to mind when we invoke its name.

Many writers are neither spirit nor wine, but rather spirits- of-wine: they can catch fire, and then they give off heat.

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.