Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.

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.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.

In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.

Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.