A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them,--defects which it is well not to correct.

Today there are no more irreconcilable enmities, because there are no more disinterested emotions: that's a good thing born from a bad thing.

Virtue by calculation is the virtue of vice.

One can with dignity be wife and widow but once.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus.

To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.