Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

Whoever incites anger has a strong insurance against indifference.

The scholar without good breeding is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic.

Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.

A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

It seems to me that your doctor [Tronchin] is more of a philosopher than a physician. As for me, I much prefer a doctor who is anoptimist and who gives me remedies that will improve my health. Philosophical consolations are, after all, useless against real ailments. I know only two kinds of sickness--physical and moral: all the others are purely in the imagination.