A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.

How little has situation to do with happiness. The happy individual uses their intelligence to realise things could be worse and therefore is grateful and happy. The unhappy individual does the opposite!

... there's nothing but quarreling with the women; it's my belief they like it better than victuals and drink.

We relate all our afflictions more frequently than we do our pleasures.

such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarassment.

I am tired to death! tired of every thing! I would give the universe for a disposition less difficult to please. Yet, after all, what is there to give pleasure? When one has seen one thing, one has seen every thing.

People who live together naturally catch the looks and air of one another and without having one feature alike, they contract a something in the whole countenance which strikes one as a resemblance