Old age is a lease nature only signs as a particular favor, and it may be, to one, only in the space of two or three ages; and then with a pass to boot, to carry him through, all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way of his long career.

A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!

Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.

Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.

Que sçais-je?" (What do I know?)

I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it; the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.

One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.