There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet’s bombast!
It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.
Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.
Courtly manners are contagious; they are caught at Versailles.
Love, slow and gradual in its growth, is too much like friendship ever to be a violent passion.
Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis; but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.
Love begins with love ; and the warmest friendship cannot change even to the coldest love.
The same amount of pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely; to those above him.
For a long time visits among lovers and professions of love are kept up through habit, after their behavior has plainly proved that love no longer exists.
In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.
Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.
Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.
Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.
He who excels in his art so as to carry it to the utmost height of perfection of which it is capable may be said in some measure to go beyond it: his transcendent productions admit of no appellations.
Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant; he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise.
Avoid making yourself the subject of conversation.
We should only endeavour to think and speak correctly ourselves, without wishing to bring others over to our taste and opinions.
A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse ; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.
A man who has schemed for some time can no longer do without it; all other ways of living are to him dull and insipid.
We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better.
There is a pleasure in meeting the glance of a person whom we have lately laid under some obligations.