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. - Nicolas Chamfort

Few people are prepared to use their reason without fear or favor, or bold enough to apply it relentlessly to every moral, political and social issue: to kings and ministers, to men in high places, to the philosophers, to absolutely every scientific and artistic principle. And if we don't, we're doomed to remain mediocre.

His nobility led him to take a few steps in the direction of fortune, and then to despise her.

Il me semble, disait M. de…, à propos des faveurs des femmes, qu'à la vérité, cela se dispute au concours, mais que cela ne se donne ni au sentiment, ni au mérite.