Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring.

The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally tobe nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.

Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.

The man whom no one pleases is much more unhappy than the man who pleases no one.

Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.

Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

Preserving the serious health condition is usually painful.