As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.
— Jean de la Bruyere
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.
Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.
The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.
Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.
Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker.
Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.
The passion of hatred is so long lived and so obstinate a malady that the surest sign of death in a sick person is their desire for reconciliation.
The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.
The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.
The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.
The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.
One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.
It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.
A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.
Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds - habits and novelty.
It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?
Love and friendship exclude each other.
Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.
Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.
Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.
Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.
Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.
Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.
We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.
When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.
There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.
Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.
A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.
Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.
All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.
Out of difficulties grow miracles.
The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.
We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.
The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.
If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.
A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.
This great misfortune - to be incapable of solitude.
To be among people one loves, that's sufficient; to dream, to speak to them, to be silent among them, to think of indifferent things; but among them, everything is equal.
