Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.

The only competition worthy a wise man is with himself.

Childhood sometimes does pay a second visit to man, youth never.

We can sometimes love what we do not understand, but it is impossible completely to understand what we do not love.

All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the safe and just side of a question is the generous and merciful side.

In morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.