Ceremonies Are The Outworks Of

Half The Business Is Done, When One Has Gained The Heart And The Affections Of Those With Whom One Is To Transact It.

It Is Commonly Said That Ridicule Is The Best Test Of Truth; For That It Will Not Stick Where It Is Not Just. I Deny It. A Truth Learned In A Certain Light, And Attacked In Certain Words, By Men Of Wit And Humor, May, And Often Doth, Become Ridiculous, At Least So Far, That The Truth Is Only Remembered And Repeated For The Sake Of The Ridicule.

The Late Président De Montesquieu Told Me That He Knew How To Be Blind--he Had Been So For Such A Long Time--but I Swear That I Do Not Know How To Be Deaf: I Cannot Get Used To It, And I Am As Humiliated And Distressed By It Today As I Was During The First Week. No Philosophy In The World Can Palliate Deafness.

Whoever Is In A Hurry Shows That The Thing He Is About Is Too Big For Him.

Six, Or At Most Seven, Hours' Sleep Is, For A Constancy, As Much As You Or Anybody Else Can Want; More Is Only Laziness And Dozing, And Is, I Am Persuaded, Both Unwholesome And Stupefying.