Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.

We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.

We torment ourselves rather to make it appear that we are happy than to become so.

The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.

The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.

The generality of friends puts us out of conceit with friendship; just as the generality of religious people puts us out of conceit with religion.

Folly pursues us at all periods of our lives. If someone seems wise it is only because his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.