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

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.

[King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom of Naples, because he would not bedisturbed when painting a picture of a partridge.

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.

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.

Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.

Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.