We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.
Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.
It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them.
We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.
We pardon to the extent that we love.
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.
We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.
There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.
Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.
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.
We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.
If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.
No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.
There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.
Many men are contemptuous of riches few can give them away.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.
We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.
Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
Taste may change, but inclination never.
What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
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.
It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
It is with true love as it is with ghosts everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
Only the contemptible fear contempt.
On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.
Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.
Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.