Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.

An assembly of the states, a court of justice, shows nothing so serious and grave as a table of gamesters playing very high; a melancholy solicitude clouds their looks; envy and rancor agitate their minds while the meeting lasts, without regard to friendship, alliances, birth or distinctions.

The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.

Such a great misfortune, not to be able to be alone.

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.

It is a proof of boorishness to confer a favor with a bad grace; it is the act of giving that is hard and painful. How little does a smile cost?

Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.