There is what is called the highway to posts and honor, and there is a cross and by way, which is much the shortest.

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.

There are three great events in our lives: birth, life and death. Of birth we have no conscience; with death, we suffer; and, concerning life, we forget to live it.

The nearer we approach great men, the clearer we see that they are men.

The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.

False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.

We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.