Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.

The good or the bad fortune of men depends not less upon their own dispositions than upon fortune.

The fondness or indifference that the philosophers expressed for life was merely a preference inspired by their self-love, and will no more bear reasoning upon than the relish of the palate or the choice of colors.

It is easier to fall in love when you are out of it than to get out of it when you are in.

To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.

Propriety is the least of all laws, and the most observed.

There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.