The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty year later.

Politicians are like ships; noisiest when lost in a fog.

Night is the blotting paper of many sorrows.

No doctor is a good doctor who has never been ill himself.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

In history, characters and events occur twice, first as tragedy then as farce.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.

Finance is the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears.

Kindness is never wasted. If it has no effect on the recepient, at least it benefits the bestower.

Kindness it is that bring forth kindness.

One person with a belief is a social power equal to nintynine who have only interest.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried onhim personally.