It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.

Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us.

In this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is to Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for failing to prevent the French from taking Minorca.

Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.

We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results.