Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.

How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?

Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.

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.

It is much better to learn to deal with the ills we have now than to speculate on those that may befall us.