Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.

The secret of pleasing in conversation is not to explain too much everything; to say them half and leave a little for divination is a mark of the good opinion we have of others, and nothing flatters their self-love more.

A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.

Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.