A mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.

Patience is the courage of the conqueror, the strength of man against destiny.

At court one becomes a sort of human ant eater, and learns to catch one's prey by one's tongue.

There is an ill-breeding to which, whatever our rank and nature, we are almost equally sensitive, the ill-breeding that comes from want of consideration for others.

Love is a very contradiction of all the elements of our ordinary nature -- it makes the proud man meek -- the cheerful, sad -- the high-spirited, tame; our strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy fail before it. Believe me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in a man from any knowledge of his past character.

Fate is not the ruler, but the servant of Providence.

The higher the rank the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to.