Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.

Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.

Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.

How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!

The fool only is troublesome. A plan of sense perceives when he is agreeable or tiresome; he disappears the very minute before he would have been thought to have stayed too long.

The same vices which are huge and insupportable in others we do not feel in ourselves.

A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.