The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men.

An agreeable figure and winning manner, which inspire affection without love, are always new. Beauty loses its relish, the graces never, after the longest acquaintance, they are no less agreeable than at first.

Men are guided less by conscience than by glory; and yet the shortest way to glory is to be guided by conscience.

The coward reckons himself cautious, the miser frugal.

Every man, however little, makes a figure in his own eyes.

An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his demands will oblige you to stop short at last, after he has become a little headstrong.

Such is the power of imagination, that even a chimerical pleasure in expectation affects us more than a solid pleasure in possession.