Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.

Men who cannot deceive others are very often successful at deceiving themselves.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain; good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.

There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it; for no species of falsehood is more frequent than flattery, to which the coward is betrayed by fear, the dependent by interest, and the friend by tenderness: those who are neither servile nor timorous are yet desirous to bestow pleasure; and, while unjust demands of praise continue to be made, there will always be some whom hope, fear, or kindness will dispose to pay them.