It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.

Children are natural mythologists: they beg to be told tales, and love not only to invent but to enact falsehoods.

Eloquence is a republican art, as conversation is an aristocratic one.

Love, whether sexual, parental, or fraternal, is essentially sacrificial, and prompts a man to give his life for his friends.

When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.

A simple life is its own reward.

The world is so ordered that we must, in a material sense, lose everything we have and love, one thing after another, until we ourselves close our eyes.