The most subtle flattery that a woman can receive is by actions, not by words.

Elegance is exquisite polish.

Order in a house ought to be like the machinery in opera, whose effect produces great pleasure, but whose ends must be hid.

In looking around me seeking for miserable resources against the heaviness of time, I open a book and I say to myself, as the cat to the fox: I have only one good turn, but I need no other.

Where love and wisdom drink out of the same cup, in this everyday world, it is the exception.

Fortune does not change [people], it unmasks them.

One of the first observations to make in conversation is the state, or the character, and the education of the person to whom we speak.