People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.

I see little alteration at Lyons since I formerly passed through it. Its manufactories are, nevertheless, flourishing, though less improvement than could be expected is visible in the external aspect of the place.

A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question.

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .

We are more prone to murmur at the punishment of our faults than to lament them.

alas! there is no casting anchor in the stream of time!

Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.