One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.

Profane eloquence is transfered from the bar, where Le Maitre, Pucelle, and Fourcroy formerly practised it, and where it has become obsolete, to the Pulpit, where it is out of place.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

Every hour in itself, as it respects us in particular, is the only one we can call our own.

As a man falls out of favour and his wealth declines, we discover for the first time the ridiculous aspects of his character, which were always there but which wealth and favour had concealed.

There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.

There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.