Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts.
A woman will sometimes forgive the man who tries to seduce her, but never the man who misses an opportunity when offered.
To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.
Politics is the systematic cultivation of hatred.
Society is divided into two classes: the shearers and the shorn. We should always be with the former against the latter.
The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.
Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on that subject.
If you wish to be popular in society consent to be taught many things you already know.
I found there a country with thirty-two religions and only one sauce.
Mistrust first impulses; they are nearly always good.
Only a man who has loved a woman of genius can appreciate what happiness there is in loving a fool.
God gave humans language so they could conceal their thoughts from one another.
An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.
What clever man has ever needed to commit a crime? Crime is the last resort of political half-wits.
If we go on explaining we shall cease to understand one another.
What I have been taught, I have forgotten; what I know, I have guessed.
Regimes may fall and fail, but I do not.
The art of putting the right men in the right places is first in the science of government; but that of finding places for the discontented is the most difficult.
Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour.
Without freedom of the press, there can be no representative government.
Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.
A clever woman often compromises her husband; a stupid woman only compromises herself.
A married man with a family will do anything for money.
Whoever did not live in the years neighboring 1789 does not know what the pleasure of living means. [Fr., Qui n'a pas vecu dans les annees voisines de 1789 ne sait pas ce que c'est le palisir de vivre.]
War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.
