The best philosophy is to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot; bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it.

It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.

Shakespeare had no tutors but nature and genius. He caught his faults from the bad taste of his contemporaries. In an age still less civilized Shakespeare might have been wilder, but would not have been vulgar.

This world is a comedy, not Life.

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.

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

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.