Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.

It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful.

Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.

Someone described Providence as the baptismal name of chance; no doubt some pious person will retort that chance is the nickname of Providence.

Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners.

Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world.

Society ... is nothing more than the war of a thousand petty opposed interests, an eternal strife of all the vanities, which, turn in turn wounded and humiliated one by the other, intercross, come into collision, and on the morrow expiate the triumph of the eve in the bitterness of defeat. To live alone, to remain unjostled in this miserable struggle, where for a moment one draws the eyes of the spectators, to be crushed a moment later -- this is what is called being a nonentity, having no existence. Poor humanity!