Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.

We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other.

The threat of a neglected cold is for doctors what the threat of purgatory is for priests-a gold mine.

Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.

The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have lost, are to our old friends what glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs are to real eyes, natrual teeth and legs of flesh and bone.

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.