The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.

We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face--so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.

It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect.

What we cut off from our other faults is very often but so much added to our pride.

Bravery in simple soldiers is a dangerous trade, to which they have bound themselves to get their livelihood.

Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.