Women of the world crave excitement.
Narrow waists and narrow minds go together.
In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned.
A modicum of discord is the very spice of courtship.
Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.
Contemptuous people are sure to be contemptible.
Egotism is the tongue of vanity.
If a woman were about to proceed to her execution, she would demand a little time to perfect her toilet.
It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.
Every woman in choosing a lover takes more account of the way in which other women regard the man than of her own.
Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.
If taking vitamins doesn’t keep you healthy enough, try more laughter: The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.
A man without nobility cannot have kindliness; he can only have good nature.
Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.
Thought consoles us for all, and heals all. If at times it does you ill, ask it for the remedy for that ill and it will give it to you.
Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians – lack of power to pronounce the syllable, “No.” To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one’s freedom and one’s character.
Wicked people sometimes perform good actions. I suppose they wish to see if this gives as great a feeling of pleasure as the virtuous claim for it.
The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.
It is when their age of passions is past that great men produce their masterpieces, just as it is after volcanic eruptions that the soil is most fertile.
All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.