When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive.

One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.

Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.

A man who knows the court is master of his gestures, of his eyes and of his face; he is profound, impenetratable; he dissimulates bad offices, smiles at his enemies, controls his irritation, disguises his passions, belies his heartm speaks and acts against his feelings.

An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure, but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.

A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.

Love seizes us suddenly, without giving warning, and our disposition or our weakness favors the surprise; one look, one glance, from the fair fixes and determines us.