Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.

To be among people one loves, that's sufficient; to dream, to speak to them, to be silent among them, to think of indifferent things; but among them, everything is equal.

There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.

Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.

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.

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

The finest pleasure is kindness to others.