The old begin to complain of the conduct of the young when they themselves are no longer able to set a bad example.

We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.

A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.

We forgive just so long as we love.

The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so.

One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks.

It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.