Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide,- In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied.

Tis the established custom [in Vienna] for every lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and another that performs the duties.

Civility cost nothing.

One can never outlive one's vanity.

I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing -- it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.

My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.

I know a love may be revived which absence, inconstancy, or even infidelity has extinguished, but there is no returning from a dTgovt given by satiety.