Cheating is a sin, but honest cunning is simply prudence. It is a virtue. To be sure, it has a likeness to roguery, but that cannot be helped. He who has not learned to practice it is a fool.

I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of its charms.

The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.

It is only necessary to have courage, for strength without self-confidence is useless.

Praise the beautiful for their intelligence and the intelligent for their beauty.

Marriage is the tomb of love.

Enjoy the present, bid defiance to the future, laugh at all those reasonable beings who exercise their reason to avoid the misfortunes which they fear, destroying at the same time the pleasure that they might enjoy.