Government mitigates the inequality of power, and makes an innocent man, though of the lowest rank, a match for the mightiest of his fellow-subjects.

Flying would give such occasions for intrigues as people cannot meet with who have nothing but legs to carry them.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

Fame is a good so wholly foreign to our natures that we have no faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any organ in the body to relish it; an object of desire placed out of the possibility of fruition.

Even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labor under this disadvantage, that however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him.