Whoever has seen the masked at a ball dance amicably together, and take hold of hands without knowing each other, leaving the next moment to meet no more, can form an idea of the world.
More are taken in by hope than by cunning.
Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.
A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views.
Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.
It is easy to criticize an author, but difficult to appreciate him.
Our actions are neither so good nor so evil as our impulses.
Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy.
We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design.
When we are sick our virtues and our vices are in abeyance.
If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.
There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.
Our opinion of others is not so variable as our opinion of ourselves.
No one likes to be pitied for his faults.
We must not be timid from a fear of committing faults: the greatest fault of all is to deprive oneself of experience.
The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers.
The tempests of youth are mingled with days of brilliant sunshine.
The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.
Nothing endures except truth.
It is easier to say new things than to reconcile those which have already been said.