Courtly manners are contagious; they are caught at Versailles.

We trust our secrets to our friends, but they escape from us in love.

The finest pleasure is kindness to others.

There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.

Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.

The noblest deeds are well enough set forth in simple language; emphasis spoils them.

One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.

He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.

Don't wait to be happy to laugh... You may die and never have laughed.

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.

A man can deceive a woman by his sham attachment to her provided he does not have a real attachment elsewhere.

Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a sickbed certainly forebodes death.

It is through madness that we hate an enemy, and think of revenging ourselves; and it is through indolence that we are appeased, and do not revenge ourselves.

It is a great misfortune not to possess sufficient wit to speak well, nor sufficient judgment to keep silent.

A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.

The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.

Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.

The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.