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.

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

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

Fortune mends more faults in us than ever reason would be able to do.

Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring.

The fame of great men ought to be judged always by their big, fancy names.

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.