King René of Anjou [(1409-80)]was a strange compound of amiable, great and trifling qualities. He was so excellent a sovereign as to acquire the surnom of the Good. He was brave in war, delighted in tournaments and wrote on them, instituted festivals and processions, partly religious and partly burlesque, was a fond husband, a romantic lover, a good painter for that age, and a true philosopher.

By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.

We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.

One's mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.

I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighboring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded air of superiority.

I have sometimes seen women, who would have been sensible enough, if they would have been content not to be called women of sense--but by aiming at what they had not, they only proved absurd--for sense cannot be counterfeited.

I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel - a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.