Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

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

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

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

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.