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

We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive.

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.

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