Gaiety pleases more when we are assured that it does not cover carelessness.

Life resembles Gobelin tapestry; you do not see the canvass on the right side; but when you turn it, the threads are visible.

Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.

Conversation as talent exists only in France. In other countries, conversation provides politeness, discussion, and friendship; in France, it is an art for which imagination and soul are certainly very welcome, but which can also provide its own secret remedies to compensate you for the absence of either or both, if you so desire.

It is difficult to grow old gracefully.

What matters in a character is not whether one holds this or that opinion: what matters is how proudly one upholds it.

Venice astonishes more than it pleases at first sight.