I know that I have had friends who would never have vexed or betrayed me, if they had walked on all fours.

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.

I never found even in my juvenile hours that it was necessary to go a thousand miles in search of themes for moralizing.

[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.

Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.

How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.

Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.