Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more. |
False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it. |
From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race. |
Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it. |
Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a sickbed certainly forebodes death |
He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk. |
I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found. |
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other. |
If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction. |
If you wish to be held in esteem, you must associate only with those who are esteemable |
It is a great misfortune not to possess sufficient wit to speak well, nor sufficient judgment to keep silent |
It is a great misfortune to have the wit to speak, but not the sense when to remain silent. |
It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues |
It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not. |
It is the glory and merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all |