When not prompted by vanity we say little. - François de La Rochefoucauld

On a fait une vertu de la modération pour borner l’ambition des grands hommes, et pour consoler les gens médiocres de leur peu de fortune, et de leur peu de mérite.

Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much, yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirised can join in the satire. It is unfortunate to have a satirical turn without affecting to be pleased or without loving to jest.

Man is so wretched that, while directing all his conduct towards satisfying his passions, he constantly moans about their tyranny: he cannot bear their violence, nor the violence he must use against himself in order to free himself from their yoke; he finds them disgusting, but so too their remedies, and he cannot come to terms with the pain of his illness, nor with the labour necessary for a cure.