The great charm of conversation consists less in the display of one's own wit and intelligence than in the power to draw forth the resources of others.

The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

Foolish jokers are thick on the ground, and it rains insects of that sort everywhere. A good joker is a rarity; even a man who is such by nature finds it hard to sustain the part for long; it seldom happens that the man who makes us laugh wins our esteem.

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.

It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

A man is thirty years old before he has any settled thoughts of his fortune; it is not completed before fifty. He falls to building in his old age, and dies by the time his house is in a condition to be painted and glazed.