“Can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment.”

Half the world does not know how the other half lives.

A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.

So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool, you must first break your mirror

The right moment wears a full head of hair: when it has been missed, you can’t get it back; it’s bald in the back of the head and never turns around.

Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind.

Bring down the curtain, the farce is over.

We will take the good-will for the deed.

If in your soil it takes, to heaven A thousand thousand thanks be given; And say with France, it goodly goes, Where the Pantagruelion grows.

I’d rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous.

The remedy for thirst? It is the opposite of the one for a dog bite: run always after a dog, he’ll never bite you; drink always before thirst, and it will never overtake you.

I am going to seek a great perhaps.

One falls to the ground in trying to sit on two stools.

It is said, proverbially, that happy is the doctor who is called in when the disease is on its way out.

Science without conscience is the soul’s perdition.

I won’t undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.