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.

Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. Matter-of-fact men, and those who like precision, naturally fall into comparisons and metaphor. Sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied even with hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is only great geniuses and those of the very highest order that are able to rise to its height.

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.

If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

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

A vain man finds his account in speaking good or evil of himself.

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