A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to the part.

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.

False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.

He who excels in his art so as to carry it to the utmost height of perfection of which it is capable may be said in some measure to go beyond it: his transcendent productions admit of no appellations.

Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.