However much we may distrust men's sincerity, we always believe they speak to us more sincerely than to others.

To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can to seem established there already.

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.

In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.

It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity.

What is perfectly true is perfectly witty.

Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.