A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.

Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter.

Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

There is a sort of love whose very excessiveness prevents the lover's being jealous.

Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.

No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them.