Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.

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

Love, like fire, cannot subsist without constant impulse; it ceases to live from the moment it ceases to hope or to fear.

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.

Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labor.

Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.