Generally we obtain very surely and very speedily what we are not too anxious to obtain.

I bold it impossible, that the great monarchies of Europe can subsist much longer; they all affect magnificence and splendor.

It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.

Great men never make bad use of their superiority. They see it and feel it and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.

Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing it is out of the question.

All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.