"We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years."

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

"We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue."

"What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give."

"If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship."

"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not."

"One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one."

"We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves."

"Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on."

"A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others."

"In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors."

"We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire."

"The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve."

"Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too."

"No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will."

"Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side."

"The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others."

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

"Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended."

"There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess."

"What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given."

"The intellect is always fooled by the heart."

"No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so."

"We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears."

"Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed."

"Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted."

"There are heroes in evil as well as in good."

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

"We promise in proportion to our hopes, and we deliver in proportion to our fears."

"All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones."

"Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth."

"Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away."

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

"When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe."

"Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others."

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

"Usually we praise only to be praised."

"If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength."

"Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors."

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

"Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with."

"There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness."

"However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention."

"Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new."

"Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another."

"The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech."

"The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices."

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

"Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love."

"The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age."