We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.

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.

None but great men are capable of having great flaws.

Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.

The duration of our passions is no more dependent on ourselves than the duration of our lives.

Self-love makes our friends appear more or less deserving in proportion to the delight we take in them, and the measures by whichwe judge of their worth depend upon the manner of their conversing with us.

It often happens that things come into the mind in a more finished form than could have been achieved after much study.