We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally.

It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.

When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.

We feel good and ill only in proportion to our self-love.

Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.

We are never so ridiculous through what we are as through what we pretend to be.

Perfect courage and utter cowardice are two extremes which rarely occur.