As we mature, we become more and more serious, and this, I may say, is the first step towards becoming more stupid.
Time seems to me like an unfathomable ocean that swallows up many remarkable writers, injuring some and turning others into dust.
We all do something for posterity; I'd like to see what the descendants do for us.
There is always something to be said to justify both sides.
Pride comes from too little judgment and ignorance of self.
If we are to believe our philosophers, man is distinguished from other living beings by the ability to laugh.
If much scientific knowledge has not succeeded in making man smarter, then it naturally makes him conceited and arrogant.
I love my garden not because a cherry tree grows there, but because the blackbirds come there; they sing and I feed them cherries.
A woman rarely asks for advice before buying her wedding dress.
The woman is too sincere and too principled to obey the voice of reason...
Women who were happy in their first marriage accept the second one more easily.
We are all endowed by nature with the ability to make puns, only in simple people these buds of ingenuity are controlled by logic and common sense, and in talented people they actually blossom.
Why should I be told that my happiness is nothing but an illusion? Even if it's an illusion, let me enjoy it.
Health and happiness feed off each other.
Defamation and ridicule - this is the constant demand of the public.
Knowledge is that thing that fundamentally elevates one above others.
Of all the representatives of the human species the weakest poets are most indulged in the envy of defamation.
If the dead could read the laudatory inscriptions on their graves, they would die a second time - of shame.
True happiness likes solitude; it is the enemy of the clamor of luxury, and is born above all from self-love.
The real humorist knows how to keep a serious face when everyone around them is laughing; and the fake one, on the contrary, is ridiculous - and those around keep their seriousness.
Books are a treasure, a testament of human intelligence, meant to be passed down from generation to generation, for the benefit of those who will be born in the future.
When the soul dreams, it is also stage and actor and audience.
When a king comes to the throne, it is time to give laws against the iniquities of power.
When I see these tables covered with so many dishes, it seems to me that gout, dropsy, colds and many other diseases are hidden behind each of them, as if in an attack.
Godly men refrain from reprehensible deeds out of fear; honest people, out of contempt for such deeds.
Silence is sometimes more meaningful and nobler than the most elegant and expressive eloquence, and in many cases it is the proof of an elevated mind.
Men who treat women with great respect rarely enjoy great success.
We renounce sins and vices, leaving it to the Most High to decide what both mean.
We, the English, are characterized by a special shyness in everything that concerns religion.
The least noisy and most discreet friendship is the most useful. That is why I have always preferred a restrained friend to an overzealous one.