I do not know whether I would not like much better to have produced one perfectly formed child by intercourse with the muses than by intercourse with my wife.

The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.

A good marriage (if any there be) refuses the conditions of love and endeavors to present those of amity.

To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.

No wind favors he who has no destined port.

It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these words which tone down and modify the hastiness of our propositions: "Perhaps, In some sort, Some, They say, I think," and the like.

Habit is second nature.