The life of famous men was more glorious in antiquity; the life of obscure men is happier with the moderns.

[Moralistic] novels are at the same disadvantage as teachers: children never believe them, because they make everything that happens relate to the lesson at hand.

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

Life teaches much, but to all thinking persons it brings ever closer the will of God - not because their faculties decline, but on the contrary, because they increase.

The pursuit of politics is religion, morality, and poetry all in one.

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.

O memory, thou bitter sweet,--both a joy and a scourge!