“Travelling is one Way of lengthening Life, at least in Appearance. It is but a Fortnight since we left London; but the Variety of Scenes we have gone through makes it seem equal to Six Months living in one Place.” — Benjamin Franklin, letter to Mary Stevenson, from Paris, Sept. 14, 1767

“Blasphemy depends upon belief, and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.”

— G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1906

“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.”