The human face is a weak guarantee; yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows; I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.

We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.

Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own.

The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.

Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.

Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants.