He who obstinately wishes to be true to reason, to conscience, or at least to scruples against the absurd and unjust conventions which rule society, who do not doubt even when it is profitable to doubt, that, in the end, remains alone without friends and support, apart from a certain incorporeal being, which is called virtue, and which does not at all prevent us from dying of hunger.
Whoever wants to be liked by those in high circles, he must come to terms early on with the idea that there he will be taught things that have long been known, by people who have no idea about them.
Someone has said that to borrow from antiquity is to commit piracy on the high seas, and to steal from more recent authors is to pickpocket like in the street.
Any passion always exaggerates everything; otherwise, it wouldn't be a passion.
Love is sweet madness, ambition is dangerous folly.
Love is nothing but an exchange of fantasies.
Love does not seek true perfection, but only that perfection which it invents for itself.
Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that we find novels more interesting than historical works.
Reckless men are many in comparison with the wise, and even a wise man has more recklessness than wisdom.
Most people want more to inspire love than to experience it.
People spoil their soul, conscience, mind, just as they spoil their stomach.
My advice to you: more action, less thought, and don't be an observer of your own life.
The silence of a man known for his eloquence is worthy of more respect than the chatter of a mediocre talker.
A man becomes cold towards a woman who loves him too much and vice versa. Probably, with feelings of love things are the same as with good deeds: whoever is unable to repay them, becomes ungrateful.
A man who has had little to do with whores, understands nothing in women.
We can't even imagine how much brains it takes to look ridiculous!
For the role of a lover, only that which you are not ashamed to show to people is suitable; for the role of husband, anyone is suitable.
Clothes are the preface of a woman, sometimes even the whole book.
Our trouble lies in the absence of a firm and clear understanding of what we are, so the most rational thing is to be modest, that is, to be ourselves.
You have to know how to do the stupid things that your nature demands.
It is sometimes said of people who live in solitude: "They do not like society." In many cases, this is the same as saying of someone, "He does not like to walk," just because the person does not like to walk at night...
The circumstances that caused my first pain served as armor for all others.
Public opinion is a court of law of such a kind that it behooves the decent man neither blindly to believe the accusations, nor to reject them outright.
The world is composed of two great groups: those who have more food than appetite and those who have more appetite than food.
A beautiful woman said to her lover, a grumpy man, and, with all the trappings of a legitimate husband, “Remember, sir: when you are in society where my husband is present, you must be more polite than he is; this is what the rule of decency demands."
One of man's great misfortunes is that sometimes even his merits are of no use to him, and the art of managing and using them judiciously is gained only by experience, often too late.
A definition of despotism: such an order of things in which the greatest is low, and the lowest is humbled.
The changes of fashion are a toll which the crafts of the poor take from the vanity of the rich.
Scammers always try to look, at least in part, like honest people.
By how much older women, who no longer like anyone, love themselves, one can judge how much self-love they had in their youth.