Men are willing to be slaves in one place if they can only lord it in another. - Jean de La Bruyère

Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul.

Mischievous wags are a kind of insects which are in everybody's way and plentiful in all countries. Real wit is rarely to be met with, and even if it be innate in a man, it must be very difficult to maintain reputation for it during any length of time; for, commonly, he that makes us laugh does not stand high in our estimation.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!