“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.”

I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue.

I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores.

The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.

Cover that bosom that I must not see: souls are wounded by such things.

Isn’t the greatest rule of all the rules simply to please?

Without dance, a man can do nothing.

The ancients, sir, are the ancients, and we are the people of today.

Perfect reason avoids all extremes.

What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man.

I want people to be sincere; a man of honor shouldn’t speak a single word that doesn’t come straight from his heart.

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

You are my peace, my solace, my salvation.

Good Heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it.

I live on good soup, not on fine words.

To live without loving is not really to live.

How easy love makes fools of us.