A man who is free and unmarried, if he has some intelligence, can rise above his fortune, mingle in society and meet the best people on an equal footing. This is harder for a married man: marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.

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!

There is as much trickery required to grow rich by a stupid book as there is folly in buying it.

Born merely for the purpose of digestion.

A man may have intelligence enough to excel in a particular thing and lecture on it, and yet not have sense enough to know he ought to be silent on some other subject of which he has but a slight knowledge; if such an illustrious man ventures beyond the bounds of his capacity, he loses his way and talks like a fool.

There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.

The flatterer does not think highly enough of himself or of others.