Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Grief is a species of idleness.

If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.

Genius is that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates.