Born merely for the purpose of digestion.

As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid.

We rarely repent of speaking little, but often of speaking too much.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.

A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar; it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure, but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account.

Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.