Beautiful coquettes are quacks of love.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secrecy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last forever.

It is worth nothing to be young without being beautiful, nor to be beautiful without being young.

We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.

Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.