Often we are firm from weakness, and audacious from timidity.

It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.

The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves.

We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.

We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive.