A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men but they do not form a class.

All the ills of mankind all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books all the political blunders all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.

Seek not to know what must not be reveal for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more if future fortunes were known before!

The question of armaments whether on land or sea is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Indeed wretched the man whose fame makes his misfortunes famous.

A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.

I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream.