It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.

If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.

Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.

Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.

Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause without obtaining it, than obtain without deserving it. If it follow them it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it.

Duke Chartres used to boast that no man could have less real value for character than himself, yet he would gladly give twenty thousand pounds for a good one, because he could immediately make double that sum by means of it.