A gift chosen with love is immediately recognized by the tendency to guess the addressee's taste by the originality of the idea, by the very manner of giving the gift.
If we look carefully, we will find some vile intentions even in the most praiseworthy of people.
The lively woman becomes a refuge for the husband in moments of balance, but the one who constantly complains is like a leaky roof through which water is always dripping. It does not shelter, it irritates.
The woman can be a personality or an object. She is a personality if she does not depend on the man she loves, if she is master of his opinions and plans, of his body and thoughts. She is an object if you allow yourself to be treated like an object, she can be splendid and precious but without a will, subject to the wishes and whims of the master - something like a pleasant meal that quenches hunger.
The art of growing old is to be a reply to the young, but not an obstacle, a teacher, and not a rival, understanding, and not indifferent.
Each of us is convinced that others are wrong when they judge us, and we are not wrong when we judge others.
You can learn to write a book just by starting to write. In this craft, as in any other, after a little hesitation, it is proper to throw yourself into the water.
The man is a contradiction. He is ebb and flow.
Don't try to make education a series of pleasures. Only effort will give the necessary strength to the mind.
It's not enough to be smart. You need to be smart enough not to allow yourself to become too smart.
There is no worse enemy than your former friend.
We must never be sorry that a man is possessed by passions. It's like we're sorry he's human.
Nothing brings you closer to someone like jealousy.
Like gas molecules that, under the influence of innumerable blows, change their trajectory of movement every moment, human beings are constantly subject to chance events.
Veneration almost always ends in offending the revered.
Poetry is an emotion that you remember quietly.
Propaganda of violence is identical to violence itself.
The most modest gift can only please provided that the resources of the giver are also not great. The wealthy man must give a little more than his wisdom dictates. He who does not give too much, gives too little.
In a dispute, the most difficult thing is not so much to defend your point of view as to have an accurate idea of it.
The most beloved women were those whom lovers rarely saw.
Aging is just a bad habit that a busy man doesn't have enough time for.
Old age begins the day courage dies.
Old age does not forget its delicate experience and likes to give good advice, because it cannot give bad examples.
A rich man has by his side companions and courtiers, a powerful man has courtiers, a man of action has companions who are also his friends.
A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.
The efforts you make to correct an indulgent lack of tact towards the interlocutor are more distressing to him than the lack of tact itself.
War is a denial of truth and humanity. It consists not only in the killing of men, for man dies one way or another, but in the thorough and persistent spreading of hatred and falsehood, which little by little take root in men.
Freedom must be judged by the measure of the freedom of the weakest.
Wounds inflicted by one's own hand are always harder to heal than those inflicted by the enemy.
The man who endeavors to conceal his weaknesses with pompous phrases and noble principles, involuntarily arouses your suspicions.