We must start human society from scratch; as Francis Bacon said, we must recreate human understanding.
A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers.
Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact.
Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.
The success of many books is due to the affinity between the mediocrity of the author’s ideas and those of the public.
In living and in seeing other men, the heart must break or become as bronze.
What we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part of oneself.
It’s a question of prudence. Nobody has a high opinion of fishwives but who would dare offend them while walking through the fish market.
Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list.
He who leaves the game wins it.
Most anthologists of poetry or quotations are like those who eat cherries or oysters, first picking the best and ending by eating everything.
All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.
The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.
There is a melancholy that stems from greatness.
The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have lost, are to our old friends what glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs are to real eyes, natrual teeth and legs of flesh and bone.
Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It’s a palliative. The remedy is death.
Having lots of ideas doesn’t mean you’re clever, any more than having lots of soldiers means you’re a good general.
In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen, in small things they show themselves as they are.
The moment when one loses the illusions and passions of youth often leaves regrets, but sometimes we hate the spell that deceived us. So it is that Armida burns and razes the palace where she was enchanted.
If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we know already by people who do not know them.
Feeling creates thought, men willingly agree; but they will not so willingly agree that thought creates feeling, though this is scarcely less true.