We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.

He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea.

The worst condition of humans is when they lose knowledge and control of themselves.

A woman is no sooner ours than we are no longer hers.

Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.