A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them, – defects which it is well not to correct.
How many books there are whose reputation is made that would not obtain it were it now to make?
Contempt for private wrongs was one of the features of ancient morals.
He who cannot see the beautiful side is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover; he cannot lift his mind and his heart so high as goodness.
Beautiful works do not intoxicate, but they enchant.
In these times gain is not only a matter of greed, but of ambition.
Which is more misshapen, – religion without virtue, or virtue without religion?
To the liberal ideas of the age must be opposed the moral ideas of all ages.
National literature begins with fables and ends with novels.
I love prudence very little, if it is not moral.
We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness.
We should always keep a corner of our heads open and free, that we may make room for the opinions of our friends. Let us have heart and head hospitality.
We measure minds by their stature; it would be better to esteem them by their beauty.
We disjoint the mind like the body.
Minds which never rest are subject to many digressions.
The punishment of those who have loved women too much is to love them always.
The early and the latter part of human life are the best, or, at least, the most worthy of respect; the one as the age of innocence, the other of reason.
Religion must be loved as a kind of country and nursing-mother. It was religion that nourished our virtues, that showed us heaven, that taught us to walk in the path of duty.
Genuinely good remarks surprise their author as well as his audience...
How many people eat, drink, and get married; buy, sell, and build; make contracts and attend to their fortune; have friends and enemies, pleasures and pains, are born, grow up, live and die – but asleep!