Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!

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 look upon paradoxes as the impotent efforts of men who, not having capacity to draw attention and celebrity from good sense, fly to eccentricities to make themselves noted.

To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know.

Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.

Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories

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