The laws of conscience, though we ascribe them to nature, actually come from custom.

Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.

I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.

I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray... I am myself the matter of my book.