It is right to be content with what we have, never with what we are.

Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.

A vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors it, and, as such, condemned by self-love.

Praise is the symbol which represents sympathy, and which the mind insensibly substitutes for its recollection and language.

The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity.

Every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility.

The feminine graces of Madame de Sevigne's genius are exquisitely charming; but the philosophy and eloquence of Madame de Stael are above the distinction of sex.