We wish to constitute all the happiness, or, if that cannot be, the misery of the one we love.

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.

The majority of women have no principles of their own; they are guided by the heart, and depend for their own conduct, upon that of the men they love.

Caprice in women often infringes upon the rules of decency.

Foolish jokers are thick on the ground, and it rains insects of that sort everywhere. A good joker is a rarity; even a man who is such by nature finds it hard to sustain the part for long; it seldom happens that the man who makes us laugh wins our esteem.

Profane eloquence is transfered from the bar, where Le Maitre, Pucelle, and Fourcroy formerly practised it, and where it has become obsolete, to the Pulpit, where it is out of place.