Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage.

Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.

Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.

[The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste--or is but half taste.

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.

One's mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.