To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.

It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected.

Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault.