Some women destroy all your sensibility towards them by their coldness, others by their heat.

Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

How happy is it for us, that the admiration of others should depend so much more on their ignorance than our perfection!

It is so much in the nature of men to overreach and deceive one another, that their very sports and plays are founded on that principle.

If nature did not take delight in blood, She would have made more easy ways to good.

Men often prove the violence of their own prejudices, even by the violence with which they attack the prejudices of other people.

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?