Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.

The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

Unconstraint is the grace of conversation.

No man, however enslaved to his appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence would surely wish to exert it for the benefit of mankind. Yet such will be the effect of his reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault, that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his vices.

The mathematicians are well acquainted with the difference between pure science, which has only to do with ideas, and the application of its laws to the use of life, in which they are constrained to submit to the imperfections of matter and the influence of accidents.