A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

Let us not complain against men because otheir rudeness, their ingratitude, their injustice, their arrogance, their love oself, their forgetfulness oothers. They are so made. Such is their nature.

It would be a kind of ferocity to reject indifferently all sorts of praise. One should be glad to have that which comes from good men who praise in sincerity things that are really praiseworthy.

The very essence of politeness seems to be to take care that by our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with themselves.

Piety with some people, but especially with women, is either a passion, or an infirmity of age, or a fashion which must be followed.

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.

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