Hope is but a charlatan that ceases not to deceive us. For myself happiness only began when I had lost it.

It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.

What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise.

The poor are the blacks of Europe.

Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

Contemptuous people are sure to be contemptible.