French moralist of the era of French Classical literature and author of Maximes and Memoirs
There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.
Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.
Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.
It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.
As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.
We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.
Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.