Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.

The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.

Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.

Men crowd into honorable careers without other vocation than their vanity, or at best their love of fame.

The idle always have a mind to do something.

If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.

We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.