Spreuken over Man

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

Men are like the earth and we are the moon; we turn always one side to them, and they think there is no other, because they don't see it / but there is.

Someone asked me why women don't gamble as much as men do, and I gave the commonsensical reply that we don't have as much money. That was a true and incomplete answer. In fact, women's total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.

Poor little men, poor little cocks! As soon as they're old enough, they swell their plumage to be conquerors. If they only knew that it's enough to be just a little bit wounded and sad in order to obtain everything without fighting for it.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.