A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.

What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.

We often pay our debts not because it is only fair that we should, but to make future loans easier.

Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

We often shed tears that deceive ourselves after deceiving others.