New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young.

Anyone who can see as far as tomorrow in politics arouses the wrath of people who can see no farther than today.

The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind.

Life often seems like a long shipwreck of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love. - The shores of existence are strewn with them.

A voyage without companionship, that is to say without conversation, is one of the saddest pleasures of life.

[To Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled in politics:] Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is but just they should know the reason.

Kindness and generosity ... form the true morality of human actions.