“It is odd that the skeleton of a house is cheerful when the skeleton of a man is mournful, since we only see it after the man is destroyed. … There is something strangely primary and poetic about the sight of the scaffolding and main lines of a human building; it is a pity there is no scaffolding round a human baby.” — G.K. Chesterton, “The Wings of Stone,” Alarms and Discursions, 1911

“As centuries pass by, the mass of works grows endlessly, and one can foresee a time when it will be almost as difficult to educate oneself in a library, as in the universe, and almost as fast to seek a truth subsisting in nature, as lost among an immense number of books.” — Diderot

“I would have praised you more if you had praised me less.” — Louis XIV, to poet Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, after a fulsomely flattering verse

“There may now exist great men for things that do not exist.” — Samuel Burckhardt

Maxims of François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680):

• “We commonly slander more thro’ Vanity than Malice.”
• “We have more Laziness in our Minds than in our Bodies.”
• “There are few People but what are ashamed of their Amours when the Fit is over.”
• “We should not judge of a Man’s Merit by his great Qualities, but by the Use he makes of them.”
• “He who is pleased with Nobody, is much more unhappy than he with whom Nobody is pleased.”
• “There are some disguised Falsehoods so like Truths, that ‘twould be to judge ill not to be deceived by them.”
• “Men sometimes think they hate Flattery, but they hate only the Manner of Flattering.”
• “Acquired Honor is Surety for more.”
• “Innocence don’t find near so much Protection as Guilt.”
• “‘Tis our own Vanity that makes the Vanity of others intolerable.”
• “‘Tis a common Fault to be never satisfied with ones Fortune, nor dissatisfied with ones Understanding.”
• “Envy is more irreconcilable than Hatred.”
• “‘Tis better to employ our Understanding, in bearing the Misfortunes that do befall us, than in foreseeing those that may.”
• “A good Head finds less Trouble in submitting to a wrong Head than in conducting it.”
• “Folly attends us close thro’ our whole Lives; and if anyone seems wise, ’tis merely because his Follies are proportionate to his Age, and Fortune.”

And “As ’tis the Characteristic of a great Genius to say much in a few Words, small Geniuses have on the contrary the Gift of speaking much and saying nothing.”

“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.” — Goethe