Fools and wise folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.
To see a difficult thing lightly handled gives us the impression of the impossible.
Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim.
Sowing is not so painful as reaping.
If any one meets us who owes us a debt of gratitude, it immediately crosses our mind. How often can we meet some one to whom we owe gratitude, without thinking of it!
To communicate oneself is Nature; to receive a communication as it is given is Culture.
Contradiction and flattery make, both of them, bad conversation.
By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.
An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly anything.
A man well on in years was reproved for still troubling himself about young women. "It is the only means," he replied, "of regaining one's youth; and that is something every one wishes to do."