Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.

Give Dayrolles a chair.

Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.

A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs, and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favourite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies.

The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind--he had been so for such a long time--but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.

It is often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment; the former is never forgiven, but the later is sometimes forgotten.

A man's fortune is frequently decided by his first address. If pleasing, others at once conclude he has merit; but if ungraceful, they decide against him.