Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.

We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor.

Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.

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.

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