It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.

The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration.

It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.

Nothing is more ridiculous in old people that were once good-looking, than to forget that they are not so still.

We are never either so fortunate or so misfortunate as we imagine.