It has been my fortune to love in general those men most who have thought most differently from me, on subjects wherein others pardon no discordance. I think I have no more right to be angry with a man, whose reason has followed up a process different from what mine has, and is satisfied with the result, than with one who has gone to Venice while I am at Siena, and who writes to me that he likes the place.

Those who are quite satisfied sit still and do nothing; those who are not quite satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world.

Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.

Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude.

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one

Such is our impatience, such our hatred of procrastination, to everything but the amendment of our practices and the adornment of our nature, one would imagine we were dragging Time along by force, and not he us.

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.