Racine will pass away like the taste for coffee.

Reason bears disgrace, courage combats it, patience surmounts it.

Nothing 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.

I pity those who have no taste for reading.

We like so much to hear people talk of us and of our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.

I do not like to employ secretaries that have more wit than myself. I am afraid to make them write all my nonsense.

Gloom and sadness are poison to us, and the origin of hysterics. You are right in thinking that this disease is in the imagination; you have defined it perfectly; it is vexation which causes it to spring up, and fear that supports it.