Aphorisms

It is sweet to play the fool on occasion.

The desire to appear clever often prevents one from becoming so.

Laws are silent amid arms.

The only safety for the vanquished is to hope for no safety.

They change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she will always come back.

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

A successful man is simply one who doesn’t make a fool of himself in the same way more than two or three times running.

Every failure teaches a man something. For example, that he will probably fail again next time.

If all public questions were settled by shooting dice, fifty percent of them would be settled correctly. This would be five times as good a score as we make now.

Civilization is a concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of God.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.