“We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.”

The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.

Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.

I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don’t know where I would be without it.

In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

There is no better proof of a man’s being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.

Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.

To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.

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.