When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.
We have our arts, the ancients had theirs... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact.
The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.
Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them.