“There’s nothing people can’t contrive to praise or condemn and find justification for doing so, according to their age and their inclinations.”

I want to be distinguished from the rest; to tell the truth, a friend to all mankind is not a friend for me.

No matter what Aristotle and the Philosophers say, nothing is equal to tobacco; it’s the passion of the well-bred, and he who lives without tobacco lives a life not worth living.

Love is often the fruit of marriage.

You never see the old austerity That was the essence of civility; Young people hereabouts, unbridled, now Just want.

Ah, there are no children nowadays.

All is wholesome in the absence of excess.

Reason is not what decides love.

Consistency is only suitable for ridicule.

Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.

One can be well-bred and write bad poetry.

Heaven forbids, it is true, certain gratifications, but there are ways and means of compounding such matters.

In order to prove a friend to one’s guests, frugality must reign in one’s meals; and, according to an ancient saying, one must eat to live, not live to eat.

It is madness beyond compare To try to reform the world.

The defects of human nature afford us opportunities of exercising our philosophy, the best employment of our virtues. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what use would our virtues be?

The maturing process of becoming a writer is akin to that of a harlot. First you do it for love, then for a few friends, and finally only for money.

It is a strange enterprise to make respectable people laugh.