“Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.”

The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.

Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.

We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.

Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.

Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.

We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.

The mind cannot long play the heart’s role.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.

Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.

We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.

A powerless church has nothing for the devil to counterfeit.

We fear not the truth, even if it be gloomy, but its counterfeit.

The counterfeit and counterpart of Nature is reproduced in art.

It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.

Worship that is in some way divorced from mission is counterfeit worship