Remarkable places are like the summits of rocks; eagles and reptiles only can get there.

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

Reason ought not, like vanity, to adorn herself with ancient parchments, and the display of a genealogical tree; more dignified in her proceedings, and proud of her immortal nature, she ought to derive everything from herself.

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

Make your best thoughts into action.

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.

Indulgence, twin sister of guilt.