 Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich. |
| Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before. |
| There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men. |
| Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death. |
| Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth. |
| One must not hope to be more than one can be. |
| All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate. |
| The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed. |
| When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws. |
| Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem. |
| Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones. |
| The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless. |
| I have three kinds of friends: those who love me, those who pay no attention to me, and those who detest me. |
| Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate. |
| Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent. |
| Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live. |
| There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love. |
| There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools. |
| Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it; otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever. |
| It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful. |
