“There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.”

We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.

Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.

We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.

The heart is forever making the head its fool.

A man’s worth has its season, like fruit.

Taste may change, but inclination never.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

The passions are the only orators which always persuade.

Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.

Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

The mind is always the patsy of the heart.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.