There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.

Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death.

Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he says, "because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.

The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.

The poor are the blacks of Europe.

Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.

I have three kinds of friends: those who love me, those who pay no attention to me, and those who detest me.