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