Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.
A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.
Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.
People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess.
It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.
The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.
Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
Pleasure can be supported by an illusion, but happiness rests upon truth.
Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.
The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.
Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?
One must not hope to be more than one can be.
Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures.
Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.
There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.
Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the one most surely wasted.
There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.
The moment when one loses the illusions and passions of youth often leaves regrets, but sometimes we hate the spell that deceived us. So it is that Armida burns and razes the palace where she was enchanted.
Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.
All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed.
In order not to find life unbearable, you must accept two things: the ravages of time and the injustices of man.
Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.
Conviction is the conscience of the mind.
If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we know already by people who do not know them.
Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.
Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.
Paris, a city of gaieties and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief.
There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.
When you want to be well-liked in the world, you have to let a lot of people teach you things that you know and they don't.
Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who we don't know, and who don't know us.
If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.
All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.
Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.
An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.
He who leaves the game wins it.
In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen, in small things they show themselves as they are.
Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.
Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it; otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever.
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.
We ought to be able to combine opposites: the love of goodness with indifference to other people's opinions, a liking for work with indifference to fame, concern for our health with indifference to life.
The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.
It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful.
The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.
If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.
One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be an idiocy, because it has been able to appeal to a majority.
There is a melancholy that stems from greatness.
In a country where everyone is trying to be noticed, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.
Society is composed of two great classes those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.
