"Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same."

"The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy."

"Honour sinks where commerce long prevails."

"It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them."

"If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness."

"There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side."

"The very pink of perfection."

"Who can direct when all pretend to know?"

"No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder."

"Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness."

"The essence of lying is in deception, not in words."

"To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over the plough or spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray, are the things that make men happy."

"Your labor only may be sold, your soul must not."

"Let every dawn of the morning be to you as the beginning of life. And let every setting of the sun be to you as its close. Then let everyone of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others; some good strength of knowledge gained for yourself."

"How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment."

"Give a little to love a child, and you get a great deal back"

"Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another."

"Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills."

"Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence."

"I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible."

"A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one."

"You don't build a reputation on what you're going to do."

"There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems."

"Any colour - so long as it's black."