There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.
We hope to grow old and we dread old age; that is to say, we love life and we flee from death.
The most important things must be said simply, for they are spoiled by bombast; whereas trivial things must be described grandly, for they are supported only by aptness of expression, tone and manner.
One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.
Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.
The reason that women do not love one another is – men.
Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.
There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one’s own industry or by the stupidity of others.
It is because of men that women dislike one another.
The duty of a judge is to administer justice, but his practice is to delay it.
A coxcomb is one whom simpletons believe to be a man of merit.
People reveal their character even in the simplest things they do. Fools do not enter a room, nor leave it, nor sit down, nor rise, nor are they silent, nor do they stand up, like people of sense and understanding.
A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.
A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.
Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.
The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consists in promoting the pleasure of others.
The very essence of politeness seems to be to take care that by our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with themselves.
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
To endeavor to forget anyone is a certain way of thinking of nothing else.
The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.