Taste may change, but inclination never.
A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
I always say to myself what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.
True eloquence consists of saying all that should be said and that only.
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that are offered.
Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts even that of disinterestedness.
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason.
Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.
Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it is ridiculous to show it to others.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.
The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest.