On any morning these days whole segments of the population wake up to find themselves famous, while, to keep matters shipshape, whole contingents of celebrities wake up to find themselves forgotten.

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty.

Conformity may not always reign in the prosperous bourgeois suburb, but it ultimately always governs.

Someone who gossips well has a reputation for being good company or even a wit, never for being a gossip.

With intellectuals, moral thought is often less a tonic that quickens ethical action than a narcotic that deadens it.

Doubtless a good general rule for close friendships, where confidences are freely exchanged, is that what one is not informed about, one may not inquire about.

The life of sense begins by assuming that we can only fitfully live the life of reason.