Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants.

Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.

Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency: a man may very well say a good thing, give a good answer, cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one or the other.

The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor, causes a war between princes.

The soul that has no established aim loses itself.

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.

Decency, not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private.

Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.

No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.

Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.