It is as common for tastes to change as it is uncommon for traits of character.

The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.

The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.

Good taste comes more from the judgment than from the mind.

What often prevents our abandoning ourselves to a single vice is, our having more than one.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.