“One can be well-bred and write bad poetry.”

Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

I believe that two and two are four and that four and four are eight.

There is no protection against slander.

Too great haste leads us to error.

When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.

Rest assured that there is nothing which wounds the heart of a noble man more deeply than the thought his honour is assailed.

One cannot but mistrust a prospect of felicity: one must enjoy it before one can believe in it.

The more powerful the obstacle, the more glory we have in overcoming it; and the difficulties with which we are met are the maids of honor which set off virtue.

Oh, how fine it is to know a thing or two.

We live under a prince who is an enemy to fraud, a prince whose eyes penetrate into the heart, and whom all the art of impostors can’t deceive.

The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.

I maintain, in truth, That with a smile we should instruct our youth, Be very gentle when we have to blame, And not put them in fear of virtue’s name.

Men often marry in hasty recklessness and repent afterward all their lives.

It is good food and not fine words that keeps me alive.

When you model yourself on people, you should try to resemble their good sides.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

One of the most powerful feelings in the world is after a really, really long run.

Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.

True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well-being of one’s companion.

One person of integrity can make a difference.

No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities.

From moment to moment one can bear much.

I just like to shake things up, and your hair is one way to do it.