Were it not for the amusement of our books, we should be moped to death for want of occupation. It rains incessantly. ... we tickle ourselves in order to laugh; to so low an ebb are we reduced.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevignelong journeys are strange things: if we were always to continue in the same mind we are in at the end of a journey, we should never stir from the place we were then in: but Providence in kindness to us causes us to forget it. It is much the same with lying-in women. Heaven permits this forgetfulness that the world may be peopled, and that folks may take journeys to Provence.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de SevigneNothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de SevigneThe desire to be singular and to astonish by ways out of the common seems to me to be the source of many virtues.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne