"Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency."

"It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone."

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

"The desire of talking of ourselves, and showing those faults we do not mind having seen, makes up a good part of our sincerity."

"Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it."

"We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all."

"No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does."

"We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish."

"Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness."

"In love we often doubt what we most believe."

"The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune."

"He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it."

"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."

"It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated; and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend."

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

"Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural."

"We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them."

"What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love."

"You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one."

"The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest."

"We are very far from always knowing our own wishes."

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example."

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

"People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not."

"It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self."

"Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind."

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

"Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does."

"Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference."

"The greatest part of intimate confidences proceed from a desire either to be pitied or admired."

"What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several."

"The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech."

"If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss."

"Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect."

"Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed."

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

"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."

"Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them."

"Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so."

"We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us."

"If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves."

"Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while."

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

"Conceit causes more conversation than wit."

"When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time."

"Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit."

"Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt."

"We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude."

"We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done."

"In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge."