The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.

An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must at last return

You can make a good living from soothsaying but not from truthsaying.

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.