Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

L'absence diminue les mediocres passions, et augmente les grandes,comme le vent eteint les bougies, et allume le feu. Absence diminishes commonplace passions, and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.

Men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly but at a distance.

Death, like the sun, cannot be looked at steadily.

The constancy of the wise is only the art of keeping disquietude to one's self.

People are more slanderous from vanity than from malice.