A poor man defended himself when charged with stealing food to appease the cravings of hunger, saying, the cries of the stomach silenced those of the conscience.

Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.

Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.

Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.

Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.

A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question.

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .