Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.

Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.

It's good to like yourself, and that only comes from hard work, from doing. But vanity is dangerous; it can trip you badly.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.