Of all trifles, titles are the lightest.

Every generous illusion of youth leaves a wrinkle as it departs. Experience is the successive disenchanting of the things of life; it is reason enriched with the heart's spoils.

The politics of courtiers resemble their shadows; they cringe and turn with the sun of the day.

Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue in the eyes of bigots.

We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give.

To protect ourselves against the storms of passion, marriage with a woman is a harbor in the tempest; but with a bad woman it is a tempest in the harbor.

Many fortunes, like rivers, have a pure source, but grow muddy as they grow large.