That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver's pride and the receiver's cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done.

No one thinks fortune so blind as those she has been least kind to.

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

The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.

Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.

One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.