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

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.

The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

Gold makes the ugly beautiful.

People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.

The genuine Amphitryon is the Amphitryon with whom we dine.

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death.

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.

New-born desires, after all, have inexplicable charms, and all the pleasure of love is in variety.

All the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.

Each day my reason tells me so; But reason doesn’t rule in love, you know.

The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living.

Ah, there are no longer any children!

When there is enough to eat for eight, there is plenty for ten.