“But it is not reason that governs love.”

People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases.

My heavens! I’ve been talking prose for the last forty years without knowing it.

It may cost me twenty thousand francs; but for twenty thousand francs, I will have the right to rail against the iniquity of humanity, and to devote to it my eternal hatred.

The proof of true love is to be unsparing in criticism.

In society one needs a flexible virtue; too much goodness can be blamable.

Assassination’s the fastest way.

A good husband be the best sort of plaster for to cure a young woman’s ailments.

Man’s greatest weakness is his love for life.

All the satires of the stage should be viewed without discomfort. They are public mirrors, where we are never to admit that we see ourselves; one admits to a fault when one is scandalized by its censure.

One easily bears moral reproof, but never mockery.

The secret to fencing consists in two things: to give and to not receive.

It is a folly second to none; to try to improve the world.

Esteem must be founded on preference: to hold everyone in high esteem is to esteem nothing.

All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.

There’s a sort of decency among the dead, a remarkable discretion: you never find them making any complaint against the doctor who killed them!