History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

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

History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

Descartes constructed as noble a road of science, from the point at which he found geometry to that to which he carried it, as Newton himself did after him. ... He carried this spirit of geometry and invention into optics, which under him became a completely new art.

A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue.