“Gold gives to the ugliest thing a certain charming air, For that without it were else a miserable affair.”

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!

Frankly, it’s good enough to lock up in a drawer.

To inspire love is a woman’s greatest ambition, believe me. It’s the one thing woman care about and there’s no woman so proud that she does not rejoice at heart in her conquests.

Ah! how annoying that the law doesn’t allow a woman to change husbands just as one does shirts.

There’s nothing quite like tobacco: it’s the passion of decent folk, and whoever lives without tobacco doesn’t deserve to live.

But it is not reason that governs love.

We always speak well when we manage to be understood.

I hate all men, the ones because they are mean and vicious, and the others for being complaisant with the vicious ones.

Everyone has a right to his own course of action.

All extremes does perfect reason flee, And wishes to be wise quite soberly.

Malicious men may die, but malice never.

Don’t appear so scholarly, pray. Humanize your talk, and speak to be understood.

Without knowledge, life is no more than the shadow of death.

In public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to everybody, should be wrapped up under a decent cover than if it were exposed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world.

I should have known the moment your lips met mine that we were having an affair with borrowed time.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

We are confident that we will continue to play an active role in national affairs without disappointing everyone’s expectations.

I am not ashamed of anything – not my past, not my affairs, not my body, and most definitely not my desire.

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?