No important institution is ever merely what the law makes it. It accumulates about itself traditions, conventions, ways of behaviour, which are not less formidable in their influence.
That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us.
It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.
Do no dishonour to the earth least you dishonour the spirit of man.
We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.