This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.

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

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils governed by foolish servants. I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces. I have known men of valor cowards to their wives. I have known men of cunning perpetually cheated. I knew three ministers who would exactly compute and settle the accounts of a kingdom, wholly ignorant of their own economy.

In the drawing room [of the Queen's palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid's foot between Venus's thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied "Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.