Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

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.

Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind and from this arises the happiness of the poor

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.

Eloquence: saying the proper thing and stopping.

Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour.