Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness; everything else is just a promissory note.

We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.

If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else; whereas he can despise them, one and all, with the greatest ease.

A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.

Women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important.