It is very difficult to pass from pleasure to work. Accordingly more poems have been swallowed up by sorrow than ever happiness caused to blaze forth in unparalleled radiance.

The fame of surgeons resembles the fame of actors, who live only during their lifetime and whose talent is no longer appreciable once they have disappeared.

How can we explain the perpetuity of envy--a vice which yields no return?

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.

It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.

Men who pay their tailors never amount to anything, they never even become Cabinet ministers.

How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!