The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.

The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.

Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.

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.

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

We are all of us richer than we think we are.

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.