Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence.

Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.

Good-humor will sometimes conquer ill-humor, but ill-humor will conquer it oftener; and for this plain reason, good-humor must operate on generosity, ill-humor on meanness.

Despair gives the shocking ease to the mind that a mortification gives to the body.

Discernment is a power of the understanding in which few excel. Is not that owing to its connection with impartiality and truth? for are not prejudice and partiality blind?

To divest one's self of some prejudices would be like taking off the skin to feel the better.

Avarice starves its possessor to fatten those who come after, and who are eagerly awaiting the demise of the accumulator.

Envy is but the smoke of low estate, Ascending still against the fortunate.

Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.

What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.

My nature has always been to fight. My faith forces me to forgive.

Like us, animals feel love, joy, fear and pain, but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to speak on their behalf ensuring their well-being and lives are respected and protected.

We offer up prayers to God only because we have made Him after our own image. We treat Him like a Pasha or a Sultan who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Motherhood was my career. I'm totally satisfied with that.

Now, what of the entertainment that is available to our young people today? Are you being undermined right in your homes through your television, radio, slick magazines, and rock music records?

Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier.

I'm very careful about violence in games. I'm not interested in creating violent effects.

I dont want a Europe that is just a free-trade area attached to NATO. Even less do I want a Europe where its everyone against everyone, and social and fiscal dumping replaces solidarity.

Men's hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another and all against evil only.