Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect.

I only study the things I like; I apply my mind only to matters that interest me. They'll be useful-or useless-to me or to others in due course, I'll be given-or not given-the opportunity of benefiting from what I've learned. In any case, I'll have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of doing things I like doing and following my own inclinations.

Be my brother or I will kill you.

Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.

Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners.

Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he's always ready to escape their control.

In great matters, men behave as they are expected to; in little ones, as they would naturally