He had a keen eye for what was hollow in the pretensions of the society in which he lived.

Above all, he had the keen eye of his countrymen for his own interest, and for the use which he could make of other people.

The best thing that we know in his favour, is that he should have won the friendship of Diderot.
Diderot's attachment to Grimm seems like an exaggeration of the excesses of the epoch of sentimentalism in Germany.
He pines for a letter from him, as he pined for letters from Mademoiselle Voland.

If Grimm had been absent for a few months, their meeting was like a scene in a melodrama.

"With what ardour we enclasped one another.