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.

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.