The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.
I have no morals, yet I am a very moral person.
He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice.
For can anything be sillier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground?
The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.
Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them. -Francois.
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.