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.

Genius and great abilities are often wanting; sometimes, only opportunities. Some deserve praise for what they have done; others for what they would have done.

When we are young we lay up for old age; when we are old we save for death.

A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.

Caprice in woman is the antidote to beauty.

The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.

One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.